Unlimited Gamer
by theaceoffire
Summary: Having learned how to save his loved ones millions of years too late, the B.O.B. between worlds grew tired of existence. Tired of everything. Before ending himself, he decided to leave behind something for an alternate version of himself. AU. Godlike. Gamer. Dimensional/Reality/Universe Travel.
1. A long time ago

**Disclaimer:** _I do not own Harry Potter, The Gamer, RWBY, any characters within, or the general world of J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros. Company, Sung Sang-Young, Sang-Ah, Mony Oum, Kerry Shawcross, Miles Luna, and/or Rooster Teeth as applicable). Most of this world was created from those works._

~~~Unlimited Gamer~~~

In between realities, he watched.

He had once been a person, human. Born with too many responsibilities and an overly interesting life, he had grown and gained power, friends, and connections. Practiced his arts, learned forgotten knowledge, and eventually began changing as a life form.

Eventually his lifespan stretched into the distance, unfathomably huge. His power grew through rituals and his many adventures, and in the end his being itself grew due to his long years of life itself.

His first mistake, unknown at the time, was to not spend more effort finding ways to share his power.

His loved ones passed on. Healthy, yes. Young-looking, yes. But not as persistent as he. After his first friend died of old age, he had thrown himself into researching the true restoration of youth.

When his first love had been assassinated during an attempt to blackmail him of his secrets, his rage had been unheard of. Years later he learned how to bind his loved ones directly to his own existence, jealous arms refusing to abandon his loves into that darkness. Preventing them from leaving him behind.

Yet after his oldest lover still died, unharmed and physically young, he had been both shocked and determined to prevent this from happening again.

In the process, he learned about how soul exhaustion could cause self destruction.

Yet even with his frantic advances, he learned hurtful truths. Not everyone could handle continuous living. Dying was part of the cycle of life, an ending before reincarnation or whatever else existed after the final curtain.

One by one, his loved ones, his lovers, his children... they all left. Some eager to see other loved ones, some regretful that their friend and loved one was going to be left behind again. As they left his grasp, he clutched his few treasures tighter.

After only a few thousand years, he was alone.

Around 318 thousand years after that, he had finally designed a combination of rituals, spells, and meditation techniques to prevent soul exhaustion. He celebrated by playing back memories of his last birthday party with his whole family.

He couldn't actually remember them without heavy effort any more. It took a week to remember how to cry, his gnarled form uncared for as his tears fell to the stone floor. But at least he could morn their loss, even as his blind eyes viewed old memories.

Armed with information far too late, he realized that... he didn't want to be alone. Yet he couldn't revive the dead as they had all been reincarnated... or vanished entirely. His abilities were unable to find them in the afterlife at least.

Eventually he decided... to make new friends.

Reality after reality he visited. He made new allies, encountered new creatures, explored new energies and techniques, and gained new lovers. He became known as the Benevolent Omnipotent Being, and for a time felt both happiness and purpose in his life.

Yet outside his existence, outside his power, people continued to pass away. And eventually, a dear friend of his approached him and requested to be allowed to die.

Apparently he had compared his friendship with his longing for long passed friends and lovers... and decided to die and join them.

B.O.B. had been shocked! He spent weeks trying to convince his beloved friend to stay. Offered power, adventure, at one point he had even fell to his knees and begged.

And it had worked... for a few years. But he came back and requested death again, this time content and unwilling to change his mind.

In the end, the process took much longer this time. But after a few million years, B.O.B. was alone again. At some point it became too hard to make new connections, and he was forced to watch his beloved people beg for death.

He altered himself fundamentally to prevent this pain again. From then on, he could only grant 'Companion' status to 7 individuals at a time. Far better than allowing armies of loved ones to beg for release from life in chain reactions.

Once his last loved one left him behind, he fell into depression for many years.

Later, he found out that he had been retitled the 'Bastard Omnipotent Being'. His self-hate and sadness had him lashing out at others, forcing individuals to do arduous tasks that should have been simple, punishing others for having friends, companionship... love.

Even the hate faded in time, and he decayed into the 'Benign Omnipotent Being'.

Time crawled on. He found other Omnipotent Beings... but they were younger. Apparently one in particular would find interesting people and situations, and grant gifts or power ups to allow those individuals to ascend in power, even eclipsing her own if desired. In the process she had created dozens of new friends, allies, and foes this way.

He was older than all of them combined. Apparently, most Omnipotent Beings either ended up destroying themselves by accident or gave up on existing. To him, they were but children.

It had been a long time since he had seen children.

So he began to watch. People, Places, Realities... his gaze viewed them all from between realms. And watching heroes triumph over evil, of love bringing people together, of light fighting impossible odds... eventually he changed again, and the 'Bemused Omnipotent Being' felt the first true interest in the goings on of reality in many an eon.

Slowly, he began to interact again. Granting a hero luck, encouraging chance meetings, in one case forcing silly accidents on one poor boy to always trip into erotic situations. In a way, he was taking small steps in recovering something he lost so long ago he couldn't even guess a number of years.

He was becoming a person again.

He had done many a thing in the process of course, some good or even evil. Grabbing people just before death and inserting them into other realities, sending people back in time (Well, into another time line running at a different speed and retroactively replacing that person... but it seemed the same for those involved)... watching the weak become strong.

And now... he was ready to end. But just because he was going to pass on, didn't mean he couldn't play one last prank... One final trick on existence.

He reached out into a reality where a version of himself was destined to die. Not due to the many lies being worked against him, not due to the crazy old man, abusive family, or even the evil villain who searched for revival. No, this world would be struck directly by a meteor in less than a decade and wiped clean.

Touching the existence of the young boy, barely even 14 years old, he found the scrap of soul embedded in his forehead and slaughtered it. Within moments he cleansed the sliver of soul and converted it into a connection node of his own power. It wouldn't instantly change the child of course, aside from being boring that much power had to be worked into, like an old man easing into a hot spring.

After carefully ensuring that the connection would remain, he began disabling safety restrictions. No, there was no maximum cap of abilities or levels. No, foes and opponents would NOT automatically be granted skills and levels to keep everything 'fair'. Who cared about fair? It was the act of being worlds above your foes that made one feel strong, if everyone was perfectly balanced as you it would feel like nothing changed at all.

A simplified interface to automatically adapt and protect those designated as 'friends', 'lovers', or 'family'. At least this time they wouldn't die to age, soul destruction or so forth. Or at least, not as easily. Even as old as he had become, he still missed his darling, his first love. She had been so young, not even a thousand years.

Sniffling, he focused back on the abilities. Self-adaption, sure. And most importantly, the hidden setting of 'Monkey Paw' and 'Long Term Con' were both OFF. Having your internal system secretly betraying you had been interesting back during his Bastard days, but not as a going away gift.

Finally, a self-testing and simple reality travel program. His chosen wouldn't be stuck in a dead reality like he had been, alone and desperately experimenting to escape.

Last of all, a book. One that had a limited copy of his consciousness, for problem solving and answering the boy's questions. One not aware enough to fall into depression like him.

As the oldest and most powerful B.O.B. gently released his power and faded away, hopefully to find his loves again, a young wizard was just starting his fourth year in school. Harry James Potter was sitting stunned in the Great Hall. His friends and classmates shocked as his headmaster Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore read his name from a paper slip that had just escaped the Goblet of Fire.

And even as shocked as he was, he quickly noticed that no one was looking at him in support, or to help.

Surrounded by accusing stares, he numbly followed the other three 'Champions' of the Tri-Wizard Tournament to a back room.

~~~Unlimited Gamer~~~

The boy collapsed on the stone floor. His normally bright green eyes were now dull and listless, his worldly possessions beside him.

That had gone badly.

Running a hand through his raven black hair, he removed his glasses and wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

Vary badly.

A good chunk of his memory was a blur, but the highlights were still harsh. He received no support from his teachers, which to a certain level he had already come to expect. The foreign students also granted no support, but that was honestly not an issue to him.

But Ronald Weasley had gone off on a jealous rage, and Hermione Granger had given a strict lecture about how irresponsible it had been to secretly enter the competition, how annoyed she was that Harry had avoided her wise advice, and how he should be ashamed to have cheated in an internationally famous and history making competition. If she hadn't had tears in her eyes, he would have likely taken the speech pretty badly.

Ron hadn't understood most of those words, but had been quick to follow it up with an agreement that Harry was a rotten cheater. And a few other almost unrelated rants about how Harry shouldn't have money, fame, etc. etc.

Neither would listen to him. His house thought he cheated. His head of house, Professor Minerva McGonagall, thought he cheated.

Snape didn't count, the man always thought badly of Harry in any situation.

But Dumbledore had never done something like this before. Sure, he had always been a bit odd or said confusing things... but now he just gave sad looks of accusation.

It had been too much. Due to years of abuse at his aunts and and uncles, it had already been hard enough to keep his spirits going. If anyone at all had given him... SOME type of support, he could have used that as a life line to tough through his classes, the crowds of insults and whispers.

But no one had.

Not even the Weasley twins, Fred and George, whom had given him his father's Marauder's Map, nor Ginny whom he had saved from soul consumption and a giant snake that shot death beams from its eyes.

Hermione though? She had been with him since first year. He had helped save her from a troll. He had fought earlier mentioned snake of death partially to avenge her.

He had gone through time with her and saved her from a werewolf and an army of soul sucking demons.

And she wasn't going to help this time.

He had tried. Even after her lecture, even after the pang of betrayal, he had set aside his pride and tried to be a serious as he could. He had explained to the girl that he believed his life was in danger, that he needed her help, that he had no one else to turn to.

And she had hesitated. Maybe she would have agreed, maybe not... but that hesitation had been enough for Ron to break in the middle, red with rage or something more, and punch him in the face.

By the time he turned back to where she had stood, he realized that she had left.

Ron's punch hadn't been a huge issue. He had been hit a lot as a child, and his own magic had adapted to such things to both protect him, make it look worse so attackers would stop sooner, and heal faster.

But Hermione had left, went up the girl staircase, and he couldn't follow.

So he took what he owned, hexed Ron when the boy tried to stop him, and went to the one place that almost no one else in the wizarding world could get to.

The Chamber of Secrets, Salazar's hidden chamber.

He had originally stopped by the kitchen to get some dinner to take with him, yet stumbled upon Dobby the House Elf. After an exhausting conversation, Dobby had offered to become HIS house elf, to help him.

It was the first supportive thing he had heard all day. And in a fit of humor, as well as imagining Hermione's reaction, he had accepted Dobby's help and done the short 'binding' ritual.

Best decision ever.

Not only had the elf been able to clean and clear up the tunnels and cave-in on the way to the chamber, but he had brought furniture and stuff into the chamber itself. The giant Basilisk was still there, but thankfully the high magic atmosphere of the school and chamber had preserved the beast and prevented the smell of decay.

Dobby couldn't move, alter, or harvest the snake (Too much magical residue in the flesh) so now Harry was treating it like modern art, as long as one stayed away from the toothy end.

Far too much of his time was spent trying not to mope. He felt... really helpless. Normally Hermione would not only be supporting him, but be three steps ahead. Probably with a list of 'What you might face in the tournament', 'What you won't face in the tournament', and 'Items you should be working on because homework is important!'

He liked that about her.

Without her at his side, he honestly felt like was missing a limb.

Ron had been flaky enough that Harry had never felt a major loss when he would unavoidably blow up, rage at him, get lost during simple conversations... he had been a friend to goof around with. Sure it wasn't an effective or efficient use of his time, but relaxing with a friend had been a secret dream of his for years when he was locked away in the dark.

He tried not to sniffle. Friends were supposed to support you, not hurt like this.

Once again he focused on the largest issue.

He was going to die.

There was no other option. If Sirius had responded to his letter, or if Hermione was going to help, or if he was allowed to at the very least ask help from his teachers... but no, he was once again alone.

A just recently graduated fourth year magic student, one who was not really at the top of most of his classes (Although he had achieved some AMAZING extracurricular successes... Patronis Charm for one). A boy with no secret training, with no special abilities other than being a great flyer and being able to talk to snakes.

And he was forced to compete against three 7th year wizards and witches, each top of their grade years, each lauded as amazing examples of their schools.

In a tournament that had a massive death rate, both for competitors and watchers.

His hands clawed at his notes. He was trying to come up with... something. No one had told him what the actual task was, just something requiring 'bravery'.

He hadn't bothered to return to class since coming down here, he was allowed to skip anyway to prepare for this death sentence.

And he wasn't doing well.

He had gone back to basics, to try and gain better access and control of his magic. Almost non-stop he had worked on all of his spells, getting them down to silent near flicks of his wand from the initial 'Lumos' charm all the way up to the end of third year spells.

But the contest was coming up, and he heard rumors that there were going to be huge magical beasts in the first task.

Third year spells, the most vicious of which was the 'Flip-back' jinx, wouldn't phase a Cerberus like Fluffy from first year, and that was considered a 'Safe' dark creature. He didn't even know the stunning charm.

Looking down at the frantic notes he had done since finding out that he was going against something large and magically resistant, he could feel despair clawing at his soul. Even if he had chosen a single one of these spells and ignored all the rest, he couldn't master it in time for the event. And if he chose the wrong one, it could be worse than useless and not just reduce his chances but wipe out his magic reserves, serving him up to the creature on a silver platter.

Forcing himself to breathe deeply, he flattened the parchment and whispered in the dark. "I can do this. I just need direction. An idea."

Almost instantly Dobby popped in. Startled, and feeling a tingle of hope, Harry turned with a smile on his face.

~~~Unlimited Gamer~~~

He gazed at the grim elf.

Dragons.

Not just Dragons, but Nesting Mother Dragons, four of them, each a different species which required different approaches to safely handle.

His notes slid to the floor. The only creature worse would be things like Nundus, Thunderbirds, and other city devastating creatures.

He nearly dove at one of the books he had asked Dobby to 'borrow' from the library for him. It was about harvesting animals (including Dragons) for parts and had a whole section about how to handle them in the wild.

A few minutes later, he collapsed back in his chair, staring at the floor.

The book demanded at least seven wizards work together.

Each had to have a Newts in Defense and at least 8 years of work with younger dragons before even approaching a Nesting one.

And it flat out stated that even so, expect to lose at least two of the involved wizards if something threatened her eggs.

Harry quickly turned to Dobby and asked him to warn the other competitors. This was dangerous! Winning be damned, they had to know, to prepare!

Seeing the elf shuffle in place stopped his words.

Dobby had actually spied on his competition for Harry without asking. Each was already practicing to get past the dragons, to safely handle this tasked. It was how the elf had found out about them to begin with.

And none had tried to warn him.

He tried not to cry. They weren't his friends or anything. It shouldn't have hurt that they didn't care if he lived or died.

But it did.

Harry turned back to the piles of books. It was a new pile, as Dobby constantly replaced books with ones the competitors had examined, that the teachers had seemed interested in, as the small elf tried to find anything to help his 'Bestest Kindest Master Harry Potter Sir' survive the upcoming ideal.

He... just didn't have time. If he could read all this in an instant, he still didn't have time. Learning new spells was hard, and one had to practice them constantly to both do them quickly and with enough power.

The Dragon Harvesting book had several spells that would probably do the job... but required three years to master, and anything under one year might not even be noticed by the dragon. It was part of the extended education all new dragon handlers went through.

Furthermore, all those spells required working with a group, which wasn't allowed.

And even if he somehow pulled them off... well, it was always easier to kill than restrain, so he would have to focus on the more nasty items if anything. He would be called Dark again, not that they weren't doing it now.

Any chance of his friends returning would be shot by that. Not that it seemed they would be returning anyway.

He looked at his clenched fists. So what were his options?

First, he could master an impossibly difficult spell (After guessing exactly which of the four dragons he would face, as some spells wouldn't work on different species). After mastering it, he would have to modify it (Without any skill or practice in spell creation or modification) to be castable alone. Then he would have to use more power than anyone had heard of before to cast that same spell. And yet he would lose his friends, if they even tried to make up later.

So... no.

Second, he could avoid conflict all together. This would require mastering only four or five NEWT level spells (The Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests given at graduation). Hard, but maybe doable. One less if he was willing to risk his Invisibility Cloak against a dragon, his most prized possession that used to belong to each Potter through generations. His only item from his father.

He took a steading breath. Yeah, with the cloak he only had to learn how to mute sound, smell, and probably body heat, as Dragons seemed serpent like and might be able to follow that. Even then, he might have to create a distraction so that the creature would move away from the egg, which according to Dobby was the target for them.

The magically resistant, heavily warded egg. It could only really be physically moved, and he probably wasn't strong enough to use magic and hide it.

So Harry, the floating egg, would have to escape a nesting mother. Who hopefully wouldn't just flame the egg once it realizes it ISN'T a dragon egg.

Could he master four or five spells of such listed difficulty at a high enough level to trick a massive creature DESIGNED to consume potentially magical prey?

With a groan he pushed this into the 'Maybe' pile. At least it was... more possible? Maybe?

Third, Over Power, Out Think, or Out Speed the dragon.

No. To be at nesting age these had to be fully mature dragons. Some of which were smart enough to prank their care takers. Of the three, only 'out think' had potential and that was a weak option. And it didn't really have enough details as a plan to cover getting the egg anyway.

Anything else?

Potions? Maybe, but thanks to Snape he couldn't create them to (in this case) save his life. Even then, only something like an over-dose of liquid luck or forcing the dragon to drink Malaclaw Venom to give IT bad luck would accomplish much. There was a potion as part of becoming an Animagus, but turning into an animal was not only time consuming, but it was difficult and would requite better transfiguration skills than he currently possessed.

Plus he would probably turn into a baby deer or something, which would be great for working against the dragon. Just great.

Plants? Well... not likely. Both this and the potion option would likely be expensive too, and he didn't have a lot of funds, having left almost all his gold at the bank the first time he visited.  
If he survived this, he would ensure to have funds for emergencies like this. Well, hopefully never like THIS again, but if he needed to order things by owl-order.

Harry sighed. He hadn't had time to visit the owlery in weeks. Nothing but practicing really. If he had known exactly HOW likely his death was, maybe he could have spent that time cuddling with his owl, feeding her treats and trying to enjoy his remaining time.

Heck, if he was going to die anyway, why even show up? Just do what Sirius did and run away to a tropical island for a few months.

Idly he thought about it. He never did get to see the ocean. Or a beach. What would he prefer really, being burned alive while his former school cheered the beast on? The Slytherins would be happy at least.

He blinked. In all his panic and hard work, he never did look up what kind of death came with violating the contract.

A quick conversation with Dobby later and he had a borrowed (stolen) copy of the rules. It was thick, it was dense, but thankfully it was organized. But he was confused, as he didn't actually see the line about death in there.

It took a bit more research and some strange books Dobby said came from a locked room somewhere in the castle and one or two from his old 'Master', Lucius Malfoy. 'Ex-Deatheater' but full-time jerk who had unleashed the giant snake in this castle in second year.

The Goblet of Fire didn't actually kill anyone. If you broke the rules or failed to compete it would simply drain you of all your magic and let you go.

Not its fault that magical creatures like Witches and Wizards die from the shock of suddenly losing the power they grew up with.

He stared at the section in stunned silence.

So death was going to happen if he participated... but he would lose his magic if he didn't. And possibly die from that.

Pulling out his wand, he looked thoughtfully at it. Initially he had loved magic, seeing it as an escape from his 'family'.

That hadn't happened. No matter how he beg or pled he had been shipped back to the Dursley's every year.

He had looked forward to meeting new people, making lots of friends, of not being a 'freak' but just another wizard in the crowd.

Instead he was both vilified and celebrated, idolized and shunned. Just wandering muggle London wearing his current rags felt more comfortable and accepting than being dressed up and trying to walk down Diagon Alley.

He had imagined defending himself from Dudley and his gang, of using his power to protect those close to him and be free.

They had given him strict rules to never use magic without their permission, then sent him back to a home of abuse.

Even now he could feel the potential of magic, he could see the distant dream of him in a small house, whisking his wand to make random changes, maybe with someone there to admire him and... well just to have someone special.

That dream was dead now. Keeping his magic would mean his death. Losing his magic... would hurt. It had made him special, but like everything he loved in life he seemed destined to give it up at some point.

Without magic, if he survived the no doubt colossal public outcry... Well, he would have to run. Head to the bank, get what he could, then just run.

Voldemort would still be hunting him of course, but without magic what chance did Harry have? Well, A chance at least. Better alive and without magic than dead in a dragon. A terrible unlikely chance, but what could one do when given such a rough hand in life?

Dumbledore would likely hunt him down, for political reasons if nothing else. Having the 'Boy who lived' abandon your school, abandon magic, and flee from a tournament he 'entered' himself in would be bad public relations for the Headmaster.

The Ministry had sent Hagrid to a demon filled island just so Minister Fudge could tell people they were 'Doing Something' during second year. AND Lucius was basically bribing the jerk anyway, so he would likely send people after him.

But at this point, it was clear that for him to have any chance, for him to possibly live long enough to even taste life outside these castle walls, he would have to get rid of his magic... before the Goblet of Fire did it for him.

Turning to Dobby with a stony face, he explained his reasoning to the elf, requesting books that could give him options.

Well, at least he had a goal now.

~~~Unlimited Gamer~~~

His new list of notes and ideas was much neater and easy to read. Knowing that no matter what happened he WOULDN'T be fighting a dragon larger than many houses caused a calming effect.

Dobby had reluctantly offered the first option, converting himself into a full Housing Elf rather than the personal elf he currently was acting as.

When an elf was bound as a Housing Elf, the caster had to donate a permanent percentage of their magical ability to said elf. It was an action that most pure-bloods (I have more incest than you, nah nah!) did on their death-bed, and it was why Lucius Malfoy was so furious that Harry had tricked him into freeing Dobby.

Of course, normally that trick wouldn't have worked, it required both the handing of clothes AND the desire to get rid of the bond... but the terrible treatment of Dobby combined with the jerk's mental thought process of "Get this away from me" was enough for magic to let Dobby go... without losing the magic taken from Lucius's Father.

If he had properly dismissed Dobby, he could have forced him to give that magic to the next elf in line, but now Lucius would be required to actually sacrifice some of his power later in life to keep up the number of elves under service to Family Malfoy.

Unfortunately, there were limits on how much Harry could give to Dobby, or his research would have ended right there.

Purebloods tended to give an historical percentage of about 0.002% Harry's Power, though some gave less (Calculating that percentage sucked, by the way). It was why the creatures were so tiny, so old, so wrinkled.., and so powerful. Years of breeding and constant work forced them to become incredibly  
efficient with their magic usage, able to do great feats of power with nearly no energy to work with.

So even if Harry wanted to give 100%, it wouldn't work without hurting Dobby. As it was, being able to give 4% to the elf nearly caused the tiny one to pass-out and put the creature under a lot of pain and strain. He somehow called another elf (This one Harry recognized as 'Winky'), who according to Dobby was willing to help organize elves to take care of Harry and Dobby until the tournament, if he were to bond her as well.

When he offered to give her the same percentage of magic, she gaped in shock before breaking in to tears. Apparently the concept just overwhelmed the girl. She eventually agreed after being convinced by Dobby, who privately told Harry that giving this much power to two elves was not just unprecedented, but a sign of true trust and honor between the three of them.

Harry only got away with this because Winky and Dobby had gotten into a long term relationship earlier in the year, and Dobby had apparently promised to get them both into the same family (Elf equivalent to a proposal). Him bonding her counted as her marriage, and the high percentage given not only blew away most existing records but in house elf society made them something close to celebrities, almost royalty.

He sighed. The other elves that had volunteered to take care of the two kept calling them The-Trusted-Dobby and The-Trusted-Winky, and it all was getting a bit creepy. But in the end, he was down to only 92% of his original power and unlike everything else he researched, this method actually hadn't hurt at all. Elves were VERY power efficient after all, and with his 2000% increased power level, Dobby could probably handle most wizards or witches with VERY little issue... if they were able to attack. Defense was hard enough for them.

At least he would be protected very well.

Still Harry went through the long list of rituals. And rituals it would have to be... the potions used for draining power were designed to be painful and damaging, as they were inflicted on enemies and criminals.

At least most rituals had some positive benefit to the caster. Not only that, but most didn't restrict the sacrifice from being the target of said benefit as well. It was a bizarre idea, after all.

The table to his right was covered in rejections. Anything designed to torture or injure the sacrifice (other than magic loss) was right out. That said, to most dark wizards or witches they would PREFER being horribly maimed than lose their magic, so the evil jerks came up with all kinds of rituals that would leave their victim 'Alive to bask in their defeat' as the most recent book claimed. Said book being bound in human skin was a disturbing trend that he had gotten used to.

After all, there was (normally) no scenario in which stripping much or all the power from a wizard or witch would be considered light magic.

Also in the reject pile was any ritual that involved multiple sacrifices, rape, multiple participants, or certain ingredients (Babies, rare plants or animals, etc).

The fact he had so many left to choose from was both slightly comforting and disturbing. After another day (And a couple of very delicious meal delivered by a young elf named 'Carden') he finally had a list of rituals copied to individual parchments, which he began to sort.

Three to 'Unlock the powers that doth flow within", which had to be tossed. It basically let you absorb a small percentage of the stolen magic... which was counter-productive in this case.

Two which 'Enhanced the Body, repair the soul', meant for use after heavy dark magic use to prevent one from becoming sterile, to reduce/prevent/repair damage from dark magic, and to purify the soul (As even dark wizards didn't want to be forced into evil deeds... they wished to ENJOY them).

Obviously he was approaching them with a bit of skepticism, but he remembered that Professor Dumbledore had talked about how Tom Riddle (AKA Lord Voldemort, AKA Jerk-who-should-stay dead, etc) had left some of his abilities in him the night his parents died.

That had always creeped him out, so the idea of being purified appealed to him. Also the largest negative side-effect of the ritual would be negated thanks to him being both the benefiter and the victim. Originally the fears, angers, and other such emotional baggage would taint the ritual (Which the original designer found wonderful), and due to them being foreign emotions it could cause instability (As seen toward the end of the book where the writer was randomly writing bizarre comments, and whom was later remarked on by his student... who had slaughtered the author and left a  
nice note about the experience).

The author's apprentice had found that if he took the time to either cause brain death in the victim or replace all their memories with a copy of himself, that he got rid of the issue nicely... and Harry already had his own memories.

Anyway, those two rituals would cost 2% or less for the physical enhancement and 12% or less for the cleansing.

Obviously that wasn't explicitly stated, Harry had to interpret the large number of test cases written in the book, figure out roughly how they measured power units, convert it... he hadn't done this much math in years.

It would take around 2% of Harry's reserves, which he was rapidly realizing was much, MUCH higher than the people being experiment in the book. What was 2% for him was over 80% for those victims, obviously higher or lower per victim. The cleansing had required around 7 people to sacrifice, which is why the emotional conflict caused such issues for the original author.

However both rituals had caveats, that occasionally it required more or less magic than expected depending on the severity of the changes, As Harry had years of damage and abuse to repair, he hoped this would get rid of the majority of his energy and reduce how many of these disgusting rituals he had to go through.

So those two would be first, followed by some of the other one's Harry had found depending on how much energy was left to him.

Moving over to the elves in their temporary bed (And wow, that had been a long argument to get them to lay down), Harry moved to Dobby. "Dobby, I'm going to get started on some of the rituals to get rid of my magic now... will you two be alright? Will it cause any problems with the bond if I get rid of it all?"

Dobby responded just as quietly as to not bother Winky. "Dobby thinks no. We has more power than needed for many many elves, and as we are Housing Elves we will always know those of your house, even if they's not be magic."

He looked up at Harry seriously. "Our's body still be changing because of much magic given. We serve not from requirement, but from gratitude, and the bond will only grant us information from you at this point. When changing done, we be's much strong, smarter... Great Master Harry Potter Sir will be very impressed."

Harry gave a weak grin. "I'm glad it won't be an issue. And... if I..." He looked away. "If I don't make it, either from the goblet or one of the rituals.., could you take care of me?"

Dobby gave a solemn nod. "Housing elves take cares of their families. Dobby will rest Great Master Harry Potter Sir with his parents when time comes." His large eyes took a surprisingly hard tone as he observed Harry. "But that time has not yet come."

The boy's smile was slightly more genuine now. "Of course, Dobby. I've got... many things to do before then. Right?"

The tiny head nodded. "Many things, Great Master Harry Potter Sir."

Harry's smile faded. "You're going to keep calling me that, aren't you?"

Dobby tried to whistle, but gave up. "Dobby doesn't know what Great Master Harry James Potter Sir's mind is telling Great Master Harry James Potter Sir.

He blinked. "You made it longer!"

Dobby snapped his fingers. "Dobby knows Great Master Harry James Potter Sir's very busy, maybe check this book next?"

It was the first time Harry had laughed in a month, and it felt great.

~~~Unlimited Gamer~~~

First step in the two rituals involved stealing from Snape ("Professor Snape Harry!"... He wished she was helping in this.)

Since Dobby was recovering, and Harry didn't want to spend too long getting ready, he asked one of the other helper castle elves to get some potions from the Potion Professor's personal stores.

After finding out that all castle elves could get past every one of Snape's traps and such, well...

Long story short, there was now two extra tables in the Chamber, one covered in potions and the other covered in preserved potion ingredients.

He also requested Snape's shoes. All of them.

For ritual reasons.

Really.

Anyway, he now had multiple doses of blood replenishment potions, and after a numbing charm and careful collection of his blood (Elf-healed nearly instantly afterwards, they could handle small cuts and so forth), he now had most of what the body repair ritual called for.

Well, according to the student. Apparently the Dark Lord who wrote the book had all kinds of specially cleansed skulls and it had to be done on certain days and nights, and involved powdered rubies and all kinds of things.

The apprentice was in a hurry to use the ritual shortly after his master's tragic 'stabbed 33 times' accident, so skipped almost all of it... and found out it worked BETTER.

Turns out that the author had just kept adding things that felt dramatic and evil enough so future readers would think how smart he was to figure out all those complicated steps and be amazed at how he collected all those bizarre ingredients (The tears of despair from a crocodile? Really?) and so forth.

What took the author 2 months and lots of money to accomplish, his apprentice handled in one hour of set up, five minutes of casting, and seven hours of recovery.

So yeah, Harry was following the second option. It was mostly just a huge circle, a smaller circle to designate the target, and a series of complicated shapes written in blood within both.

Moving the outer, smaller circle into the larger one cause zero issues, thankfully. Aside from getting nude to ensure nothing strange altered the outcome of the thing, there was one additional requirement that normally would have taken some time and trouble to obtain for anyone who hadn't lived the life that Harry had. A strong poison or venom, the stronger the better.

Thus Harry gathered some Basilisk Venom, to be poured into a carved bone bowl placed near the 'victim'. The Castle had several variations of said bowl for some reason, of many bone types. Old traditions were odd and the school used to teach rituals as a class after all. There was a huge second ritual Harry was supposed to take first to prevent the caster from dying when the chosen venom 'burned the weakness away' using the power from the sacrifice.

Thankfully, the provided detection spell treated Harry's "I got bitten by ultimate poison but thanks to a bird I got better" as at the very least an upgraded form of that complicated ritual.., so he got to skip it.

As he lay nude, glasses back on the table, encircled by his own blood and a bone bowl of poison just above his head surrounded by more blood markings... Harry wondered if anyone else had days like these.

Then his hand hit the empowering rune and the world went dark.

Unknown to him, his body locked down thanks to the outer ring of the circle, he had missed something.

The amount of poison Harry provided to the ritual was unusual. Not only was the venom over 1000 years old, but the amount available and provided was very large. Most users of this ritual could only gather a dozen or so drops of something equivalent, not the near gallon and a half Harry had provided.

Furthermore he using the blood of the victim (Which enhanced the process), AND the blood of the caster (Enhanced it again). Also, said blood contained both that same Basilisk Venom, enhancing the destructive power of the cleansing, as well as freely given phoenix tears, enhancing the recovery power of the ritual.

That the two polar opposite substances had been fighting for months at this point in the 'victims' body simply meant that both elements had slowly refined themselves, increasing their potency, as they strove for dominance in the boy's blood.

Even as his body constantly broke and rebuilt, the ritual itself began interpreting the situation itself as if it was a broken process that needed repair... and suddenly everything froze. Harry's body had been slightly modified... and now produced in his blood both tears and venom. Naturally.

Instead of his cells constantly dying and being reborn as it had been for almost two years, now the venom interacted with the boy's lowering magic to determine harmful substances, cancerous cells, debilitating potions... and destroyed them.

Instead of the tears attempting to heal and then evaporate, they now searched out damage and repaired it on a cellular level, infusing the newly created cells forcing them to maximum potential and healthiness.

His body had basically used the ongoing ritual as a template of a natural process, then duplicated it internally. Unless changed, his body naturally assumed that this constant cleansing and healing process was not only normal, but expected.

And while his limbs broke, realigned the shards, and healed them rapidly, his scar was going through a different process.

If it had still contained a soul shard from Voldemort, it would have been cleansed, disconnected, and removed from the body.

As it only contained benevolent energy from someone between reality, it was instead healed down to a near invisible scar instead of the angry inflamed mark from before, and was being integrated directly with Harry's existing soul.

After all, the new energy was not connected with anyone anymore, had there was no personality or desire to resist the process. There was also no ill-intent to trigger Harry's defenses like his old scar did.

Even as the ritual slowly burned itself out, the boy's changes continued. The large meals he had eaten recently were consumed by magic instead of his stomach, and used to directly enhance and strengthen muscles, bones, organs. His eyes, hidden away by his close eyelids, reshaped slightly to see without glasses, while his lungs began to clear and breathe easier.

It would take almost a whole two days before he woke up and began to panic at the lost time, before he panicked more.

It hadn't worked.

~~~Unlimited Gamer~~~

Numbly Harry looked at his current magical level, using a spell that had been taking constant measurements during the ritual for later review.

He had spent away 34% of his power for the ritual (Which was good, way higher than the 2% expected.)

However, aside from how awkward he was now that his body was healthy (And hungry, he had eaten at near Ron levels for almost two hours after waking up), his new and improved body had apparently repaired issues with his magic levels as well.

He had in total, even counting the amount of power spent, gained 24% from the ritual. Starting from his original 100%, he had gotten it down to 58% before his recovered body had enhanced that up to 142% compared to the start.

It was worse than doing nothing.

Not that he hated being able to see perfectly, or hear really well, or how easy it was to move and breathe and feel magic around him.

But he had lost a lot of time (Basically two days' worth) and had ended up taking giant steps backwards.

He couldn't risk doing the second, more expensive ritual. Sure it may use up his power, but the risk of a cleansed, more enhanced body boosting his magic again was too high.

Now however, half the rituals to choose from were not usable. They took too long, now that he had to get rid of even MORE energy, so he had to focus on the most expensive rituals for now.

Rapidly he went through the lists and sorted them based on percentage. With 142% to lose, he had to find rituals that were fast to set up with massive required sacrifice levels (Rare, most Dark Lords or Ladies tend to focus on slow build up apparently, but he couldn't risk trying to shortcut those rituals like the snarky apprentice had).

His hand paused on one in particular. This particular one had seemed perfect, but he had avoided it due to how vague it was. Very simple to set up, any amount of magic could be committed to it.

The difference was this spell was meant to be used by the caster instead of a sacrifice.

It was an offering. The larger given, the larger possibility for something to happen. What one got depended on how much magic was given away, who it was donated to, and based on the hope that the creatures contacted this way wouldn't just... squish you.

Squishing was a real concern.

The more power put into it, the higher the 'request' is sent. And from what little he had translated (It wasn't in a foreign language, but it was written in English a long time ago by someone who was proud to have never completed a formal education), most people who did this ritual had interesting results.

Half of them simply had no response, and lost however much power they offered.

Of the remaining percentage, most got low gifts. The ability to see underwater from the surface, able to talk to goats, all kinds of random abilities. Apparently his snake talking skill, Parseltongue, was one such ability.

But those who had offered the most, ranging from 10% to 40% of their power (More math to figure those numbers out, it was between 0.25% to 1% of his magic) had the most significant and extreme reactions.

One would gain control of all wind, another had been turned inside out. One person gained complete control of his body to the smallest level, another gained unending flatulence. Massively explosive flatulence.

All the records agreed that the more magic permanently offered, the more drastic the reward or punishment.

Again, Harry looked at his options. This ritual, while most risky, was at least doable with a day or two to spare before the first task of the tournament in the worst case. If he tried any others, the most doable (With no time to rest or eat) would be four of the smallest rituals, and they wouldn't drain enough magic away. Not at his new power level.

With a quiet sigh, he squared his shoulders. His whole life had been a series of situations, ones where he had to do the best he could and hope for better options next time.

But impossible was what his life was built from, so damn it all he would do the impossible one more time.

Casting an eye at his most treasured item, the book of photos showing people who probably loved him when they had been alive, he sighed. Sirius had never responded to his later letters, whether that was due to distance, him traveling, or them being intercepted he couldn't know. He also wished he had time to say good bye just in case to his former friends, or at least Hermione. Ron had burnt his bridge very thoroughly, but Hermione had tried to talk a few times before the angry red head had interrupted. Dobby even said she had been in the library recently, which implied she was trying to help him in some way... or at least researching the situation.

If he survived this, he would try talking to her again. And if not, he would pretend that she still cared for him anyway.

Morbid as it may be, the thought that she would join Dobby and Winky at his funeral if they had to bury him made him feel a bit better. He hadn't really had a chance to spend time with Sirius Black before the man had to run, and the man's supposed best friend Remus 'Moony' Lupin had cut all ties with Harry at the end of third year.

But if she showed up, maybe with a few others...

Well, he could pretend at least.

Moving to the large space, he rapidly cast multiple clearing charms. The ritual was fairly complex, had to be written in his blood, and required sacrificing three material things of importance to the caster.

It was going to hurt emotionally, but he knew his mom and dad would have wanted a living child rather than a dead one with mementos.

Even as he carefully moved his own preserved blood into complicated shapes, he avoid looking at the three objects he was going to sacrifice.

His wand, His father's invisibility cloak, and the Marauder's Map.

The map was treasured less due to how recently he had received it, the fact that the traitor Peter 'Wormtail' Pettigrew had helped make it, and because no matter how this ended up he would not be returning to Hogwarts to use it.

His wand would be missed, as it symbolized many secret and special dreams he had of being strong, of going on trips of adventure, of living a long, possibly loved life.

The cloak however.., the ability to be unseen was precious to the boy celebrity, stalked everywhere.

The many memories of it helping him survive school. The rarity of the object itself, so few ever even getting to touch one, as most cost much to make and wore out in only a few years.

Most of all, the fact that it had been owned and treasured by his dad, a man he would never get to meet. That according to Sirius, it had been owned and treasured by his grandfather, who he never even saw a picture of. And his great-grandfather, and so on and so forth.

It was the legacy of the Potter Clan, the Family Potter, and even if he survived today he would never get the opportunity to pass it on to his son.

If he ever had a chance to have a child.

It was his greatest treasure, it was his most priceless possession.

And he was going to offer it up in an attempt to survive. To one day have a loved one.

His father died for him and his mom. His mom died for his life. His godfather had gone mad with rage, and yet had given up revenge on the man who sent him to hell because his godson asked him to.

Compared to their sacrifices, losing a possession seemed small in comparison.

Having completed the first stage of rune-work (Not very complicated compared to the previous ritual, most Dark Wizards and Witches were low on patience and focused on fighting rather than nitty gritty ritual stuff), he carefully placed each item within the three circles, and knelt within the larger triangle.

This one didn't require a special activation spell or complicated measuring runes.

This ritual simply required that you offer up raw power... and handle the suffering involved until you wish to stop.

You only got one shot. Many users had accidentally wasted both their chance and their treasured items due to being surprised by the pain level. The ritual prevented numbing charms, alcohol, blunt trauma, sleeping, stunning... you were going to be awake, be in pain, and not even be allowed to die from magic withdrawal. It would stop any time you wanted to, never to work again.

You had to wish for this on a fundamental level, the offering had to be both genuine and heartfelt, and the pain was part of the 'approval' process.

Harry placed both hands on the two outer circles, containing his wand and the map. He rested his forehead on the middle circle, containing the cleaned, folded Invisibility cloak. Gathering up his power like a child collecting flowers, he slowly pushed his power down through his legs and arms until he felt the circle suddenly activate, dozens of glittering red runes shining around him.

~~~Unlimited Gamer~~~

In the library of Hogwarts, Hermione Granger was surrounded by books. Worried about her friend, she had done the only thing she could and buried herself in research.

The last few weeks had been horrible. After the whole flare up between Ron and Harry, she had been frightened enough to run from the situation. When she had calmed down and went to apologize... Harry had been gone.

And no one had seen him since.

Running out of ideas of where to find him, she began leaving notes on his bed, hoping he would stop by at some point.

When she found them gone but with no response, she worried that Harry was furious with her.

At least she had been, until yesterday when she found out that Ron had found them and had been tossing them. The argument they had held had been both epic in scope and in volume, and she had found that Ron thought that Harry and her had been... that they... well, yeah. Teenager stuff.

Of course, if he had READ any of those notes, he would have clearly seen it was nothing but a series of "I'm sorry, please talk to me" comments. Prat.

Hedwig was sympathetic, but couldn't deliver mail to him. She still snuck up to the owlery each night just in case, to give the owl treats and keep her company a bit.

Knowing Harry, he was probably working his bum off trying to get ready and she wasn't able to help!  
She had written dozens of guides, lists, help charts... and as time got shorter and shorter she would remake them from scratch, ready to help out the moment he showed up.

And he didn't.

Her hands shook and she quickly crossed her arms. He had done amazing things without her, he could do this. He did kill that Basilisk (And hadn't THAT taken a long time to get him to talk about), he had fought an army of soul-sucking demons.

She glanced at her rapidly dwindling list of ideas. Without knowing what Harry had been practicing it would be tough to help, but some items should be fine. She had gotten a copy of the rules from Cedric Diggory ('Hogwart's Champion', supposedly. Still, he was a Hufflepuff, thus loved fair play) and had determined exactly how little Harry had to do to be considered 'Participating'. And after finding out that he had to get something from a DRAGON of all things, she had made sure to calculate exactly how little he really had to do.

Basically if she could teach him the summoning charm, he could simply cast it over and over. If it worked, great, if it didn't then oh well. Constant spell work would satisfy the Goblet that not only is he competing but that he was working HARDER than the other champions.

Wouldn't help his score, and obviously doing the same action expecting different results is a sign of insanity, but he would ALIVE. Who cared what everyone else thought, even his bloody Quidditch teammates didn't seem worried that he wasn't showing up to classes.

She was currently using what little Arithmomancy she had learned so far to determine if Harry could get away with doing the levitation charm instead (Even Ron of all people learned that one in first year) when she felt a shiver run down her spine.

Color seemed to fade away. Sound was dampened. She felt light headed. A dull ringing? Some distant hum?

Her arms fell to the table, trying to support her suddenly increased weight as a ringing pulsed.

As the sound increased, she felt her blood run cold.

That was screaming.

As the pained voice escalated, she felt her gut drop.

That was Harry.

~~~Unlimited Gamer~~~

His body was locked to the three rings and the triangle.

His right hand and his Map caught on fire and burned. Yet his hand continued to exist.

His left hand and his wand melted into a red liquid, only for his hand to reform and melt again.

His forehead was locked onto the circle with his invisibility cloak, his eyes forced to remain open, as he watched his precious item slowly dissolve, thread by thread.

His teeth were no longer clenched, for he must scream.

His muscles tensed and tore themselves, forcing regrowth and strengthening. Only his new regeneration made it this bearable.

And beyond this, as these things faded into the background, was the pain.

It had started in his scar, strangely enough. More and more of his power flowed through his body, up to his oldest wound, and escaped out of his scar and into the ritual rings. As his green power glowed around his pain-wrecked body, it flowed through him, escaping his forehead as a golden mist instantly pulled into the ritual.

When this had started he had imagined himself being stoic during the situation. He did after all have years of handling injury without the assistance of pain medication or potions. And while he was unaware of it, he had lasted an entire 7 minutes without one grunt of pain or twinge of anguish.

Boiling blood and braised bones had become his companions as he silently felt the ritual reach out.

Beings of every origin, size, and temperament were touched, then passed. At one point it had felt like a being was chosen for the ritual, like the next step would occur.

This his scar had torn open again, the energy went golden, and the ritual turned to something deeper, something beyond his understanding. It had connected to something with no mind, with no guidance... to something that was already somehow connected to Harry James Potter.

And the ritual had changed.

He could no longer cancel it. To his own shame, he had initially tried to pull away once he realized he was sacrificing almost everything of value in his life to nobody. That he was enduring torture beyond anything he had experienced before for no reason.

Harry had done everything correctly, surprisingly enough.

The runes were correct, where any one mistake would have caused a massive explosion or worse due to how much power was involved. The blood was purified during his previous ritual, bound to his soul, and now naturally produced two intensive magical substances.

His sacrifices were not only significant to him emotionally but represented the past (The Marauder's Map, made by his father and his dad's betrayer), the present (His wand, a direct connection to magic that chose the wizard itself), and the future (The Invisibility Cloak, to be handed to the children of his line).

All three were involved with death and his family, as the betrayer gave his father's family location to Voldemort, the wand contained the brother feather to Voldemort's wand, and the cloak was unknowingly a brother to Voldemort's unacknowledged Resurrection Stone.

Indeed, everything had been done using the highest quality level of materials, powered with pure determination, and taking place within a hidden chamber designed and constructed especially for dark rituals like these by Salazar Slytherin himself. This same ritual room had been unused for years and slowly charged up energy while under a powerful school filled with constant magic use, one that had been a battle ground between the previous 'Heir of Slytherin' and Harry Potter himself.

One that Harry had claimed as a residence, that he had spent weeks casting only his magic in (Or the magic of those bound to him). The room was deeply connected to Harry at this point.

And most daunting of all, the primary item Harry had tried to offer up, the Invisibility Cloak, was not made by man.

Death itself watched the boy suffer. The ritual involved marked portions forbidding him from interfering, at least not until the 'offering' was done. And some part of it felt sorrow for the child, as death was not something to be avoided but an end that must come to all at some time. Well, almost all. Death straightened his suit and moved on.

The ritual was constantly draining both Harry's magic as expected, but also a small portion of Death's power as well. For the Cloak of Invisibility was a portion of Death's cloak. One without end or beginning.

And the only being that currently could be targeted due to that cloak, was one without the binding or fate of death.

Thus the ritual turned upon the scar's connection to what used to be B.O.B.'s power.

Unfortunately said power was already programmed to make changes over time to the boy, slow painless changes.

So the ritual modified itself. Magic was absorbed from the earth, the air, the castle itself. Two tables, covered in potions and rare, powerful ingredients were decomposed and pulled into the mess.

Harry's scar melded into his skull, and began to spread markings through his bones, etching runes and symbols redundantly throughout his system.

His muscles hurt as three-dimensional shapes were carved into them, replacing normal meat with genetic changes allowing and enforcing new rules into being. Thankfully there were no nerves in his organs, as they too were carved and mutilated with seals and runes. Absently, Harry could smell a soft burning.

Even as his magical potential was drained away, this new power forced itself into place. Changes were happening beyond visible range, connecting parts and portions of his flesh and soul to the space between realities. Bonds were broken, connections to fate rewritten. Unknown to both the boy AND to his manipulative Headmaster, over three dozen prophecies suddenly went dark in the Ministry of Magic, most of whom no one knew who they referred to.

On the stone below the child, runes continued to expand and grow, thin layers of actual crystals forming and spreading both flat on the surface and curling into the air. Layers would pulse and glow, shiver and change.

And through it all, echoing in the dark, Harry Potter screamed.

Dobby and Winky were unable to help, as while their magic was untouched the sheer power invading the chamber forced them to their bed. Thankfully, the ritual did not try to drain them like it was currently draining the school and those within, possibly due to them having a strong unbroken bond with their Master. Their helper elves though had fled and vanished, feeling the ritual try to grip their magic as well and fleeing for safety.

No permanent damage should occur to those living above in the castle, the rock and distance limiting how much power could be pulled from the innocent children above, but the castle's ward stone was close enough that it was being drained into the boy as well. Thankfully some long ignored runic section's in the stone's defensive procedures activated, manually disabling most of the changes done to the ward stone over time and shoving itself into magical stasis, trying to outlast what it thought was a magical extinction level event.

Hundreds of modifications to the wards instantly failed. Suddenly years of holes, of ward conflicts, of 'security exceptions', of spying networks... all gone. Private ward schemes failed, and the modifications that allowed them were gone. For the first time in over several hundred years, the school was set back to 'Pre-War' footing, as it detected and disabled 'dangerous' artifacts and potions throughout the castle.

Thousands of Galleons in value vanished as cursed weapons were cleansed. While potions were allowed to remain, any added to food within the Great Hall would glow red warning the consumer. Cursed items including red 'Howler' letters would be redirected to the 'Examination Room' (Unfortunately, that area had been appropriated by previous Headmasters as a bedroom).

Dozens of low level curses were broken. Two high level curses were heavily weakened, and would likely break in a few years, allowing Ghosts to pass on if desired instead of forced into servitude and allowing Defense Instructors to last longer than one year. And throughout the school, many trick stairs repaired themselves, fake doors vanished, and multiple closed secret passages unlocked and reset.

All those benefits would normally had been applauded, had not most of the wards dropped due to the ward stone hitting stasis, causing additional mass chaos.

Harry's body shuddered before his skin began to pale further. His hair darkened to a level so black that light seemed drawn to it, his eyes if not clenched in agony would be sharp green gems. Along his spine his skin began to blacken into unknown symbols and shapes, his body pigments etching runes and seals along this final surface. Thankfully the tiny black shapes faded color into the surrounding white skin-tone as they etched their way from his spine down his body and limbs.

As the last of his surface gained near-invisible markings, leaving only a vein like series of black shapes on his spine, the last rune surrounded his golden scar.

Silence fell like an axe, and the boy collapsed like a corpse.

~~~Unlimited Gamer~~~

While a barely breathing child deep underground was being carefully cared for by house elves, Hermione was close to losing her mind.

She had finally determined that Harry HAD to be in the Chamber of Secrets.

Like before, she had gathered information from everyone she could and determined that the people who could hear the... noises... best were those who had been near pipes, which immediately brought to mind that mess from second year with a giant snake, possessed literature, and a kidnapped redhead.

Rapidly she had examined the story and had ran to 'Moaning Myrtle' and her bathroom. After finding out from the ghost that Harry HAD gone down there she had been faced with a pretty tough puzzle: How to open a secret passage when it needed a magical language she couldn't speak to open.

Blowing it open wouldn't work, said passages didn't exist at all unless you opened them correctly.

Blasting away the sink would just expose stone flooring, maybe some tiny pipes.

Her attempts delivered nothing but failures. Summon a snake using that spell Malfoy had used back in second year, use confuse on it, use a compulsion on it to say 'open'... and the snake couldn't understand her compulsion. Literally she got a sense of "Wha?" from the stupid thing before she vanished it and created another.

Technically the Imperious was only illegal against wizards and witches, just heavily fined against non-magical people, and barely fined at all for animals in general.

So... using it on a snake would be fine. Right?

A few minutes later, feeling a massive amount of guilt and a large amount of failure, she gave up. It took a dozen tries before it worked on the snake, and then she had been in its mind! She could control its movement, force it to relax or pretend to bite. But when she tried to make it say 'Open' it had just made random noises.

Random noises in Parseltongue, but random. Apparently it could understand that she wanted it to speak, but it didn't know what to say since she (Once again) couldn't speak Parseltongue... not aloud nor mentally.

A vanished snake later and she began rapidly casting random spells from recent classes.., no reason to let everyone know what she had tried if they checked her wand. If she had been less stressed about Harry, she would have likely fallen to pieces have cast an 'unforgivable' spell, even if she had followed the laws as written.

But after hearing those screams, she was focused only on finding her friend.

Rapidly she thought through more extreme measures. A timed shrinking charm plus a conjured container? Go down the sink drain or get flushed maybe? No, not reliable and likely to just kill her. Self-Transfiguration? If she WAS a snake she could just say the words herself. Unless she would just end up as an English speaking snake. No, she wasn't close to that level of casting yet anyway.

A rapid listing of associates and friends and she was out of options. Maybe the Twins, but they had full oversight of the castle with Harry's map and still hadn't found the chamber back in second year.

Tell a teacher? She neatly snorted. Yeah, her authority worship was pretty much annihilated thanks to their actions during this travesty.

If only she knew apparition, she could just teleport down there... if she had been there before. Which she hadn't.

Besides, no one can apparate in Hogwarts.

Suddenly a stray thought went through her head. That... that wasn't quite true, was it? After all, Harry had told her how that house elf, Dimby or something, had popped around all over the place trying to save his life second year.

She ran back to the Library. She still had time for some quick research. Not only did she need to know more about how house elves transported around, but how one could find one in a hurry. Thankfully classes were canceled due to the conflicts going on.

Hermione would have regretted have to skip class for this. Oh, she would have still done so.

Harry was her friend after all, and she would help.

~~~Unlimited Gamer~~~

He didn't know how long it has been.

He didn't know where he was. It was softer than the stone floor.

Every breath was as slow as possible, as delayed as he could stand it.

Movement hurt.

His eyes were closed. If he could, he would cover them more.

Seeing hurt.

Someone moved a sheet over his body. Only the agony of screaming, the pain of movement, kept him still.

Trying to express pain hurt.

His center, a warmth he always had and never recognized, never felt, didn't notice till it was gone.

It was cold.

Yet it was warming. Slowly. From the outside in, his core felt like a pillar of ice that he was trying to melt with his mind alone.

Something in his mind pinged.

 **Installation Complete. Please Reboot.**

Everything went dark again.

~~~Unlimited Gamer~~~

It was later. His body... felt fine. Shocked, his eyes slammed open.

He was in a bed. And there was no pain.

Again, he felt something ping in his mind, when a blue box with white borders appeared.

 **Welcome gamer! Version 0.0001 of 'Gamer' has been Unlocked!**  
 **Would you like to view the tutorials? (Yes I No)**

Harry blinked. Well... huh.


	2. Player Two?

**At any time, say or think 'Help' while intending to see this menu to review any tutorial.**  
 **(Choose from the list | Next Tutorial)**

Harry carefully sat up. Still no pain.., but there had clearly been a significant change. Carefully reaching out... yes, he could touch the box. The white edge felt like some sort of metal, the blue insides like a slightly rough stone. He could even hover his fingers over the buttons like he had earlier when accepting the Tutorial.

Because only a moron would reject something WILLING to explain what was going on. All he had gotten from Hagrid was'You're a Wizard, have a bird and some cash and off we go!'

He did frown a bit though. He knew he should be feeling relief that this worked, among a lot of other emotions.., but right now he was almost overly calm and analytical. Well, hopefully that would be covered.

Glancing at the upper text, he looked at the options. Focusing on a desire to select 'Choose from the list', he watched the button depress and a long list of options appeared instead. Thankfully there was a 'Go Back' option at the bottom of the lengthy scrollable window.

He mentally picked 'Next Tutorial'.

 **Getting Started: _WTF!_**  
 **You have vastly accelerated a gift previously designed to turn your life into a video game!**  
 **This gift had been bestowed by a "Bemused Omnipotent Being", known as B.O.B.**  
 **By your recent actions, not only have you accelerated the installation process but various changes and bonuses have occurred.**

Harry stared at it for a few moments before the box changed.

 **Here is a high level overview of how this will affect your existence:**

 **Your body and soul have been modified to safely handle the features of being a Gamer:**  
 **~Any and all injuries will be converted into damage values and status effects.**  
 **~~Additional rules may apply when 'Party Mode' has been unlocked.**  
 **~All damage and status effects will be healed after rest/sleep.**  
 **~Saves will protect a moment in time from change, allowing restoration in case of death.**  
 **~~Saves will occur daily at minimum, may occur before significant events. Not User Controlled.**  
 **~~Memories are continuously backed up and checked for errors.**  
 **~Air, Food, Drink, and Sleep are optional. Lack of these however can bestow temporary penalties.**

 **Existence has been modified for the user:**  
 **~Specific events, actions, or situations can grant experience, items, bonuses (Temporary or Permanent), or more.**  
 **~~Due to B.O.B. unlocking certain restrictions, Gamer will attempt to warn user about potential outcomes from said quests. These are not guaranteed, simply best possible estimates.**  
 **~Certain Skills or Events can now exist or occur.**  
 **~~Personal Dimensional Storage (Inventory) exists.**  
 **~~~'Dungeons' can spawn or be designated (Though not necessarily by the user).**  
 **~~~'Seasonal' events can occur.**  
 **~To a certain extent, actions taken as Gamer will be very hard to notice by others.**  
 **~~Acquiring money, new body features, injuries, etc. will be glossed over as 'Always been that way' or 'Not my issue'**  
 **~~Vanishing into dungeons or other events not directly tied to current dimension will prevent much if any time passage until User returns.**

 **You have been granted the three following abilities (Say or Think 'Skills'):**  
 **~Mind of the Gamer: As the only difficult to protect part of the Gamer, protections can be set.**  
 **~Body of the Gamer: See previous modifications to Body and Soul**  
 **~Observe: Beyond the obvious, this form of 'Scanning' can provide unknown information about a specific object or target. Higher levels can unlock advanced versions of this ability, or refine it to suit the player.**

 **Certain Perks have been bestowed due to the Ritual Chosen, see (Status) for details.**

Harry looked over the... long list. While all of it was shocking, the one that caught his attention was 'Mind of the Gamer'. He quickly moved the entire window to the side. "Skills."

A new box opened.

 **Skills/Abilities (Select for more information or to modify): Level, Current XP**  
 **Mind of the Gamer: Level Max, Set: Max**  
 **Body of the gamer: Level Max**  
 **Observe: Level 1, 0/100XP**

Well, that was straight forward. He tapped Mind of the gamer, opening a new window.

 **Mind of the Gamer:**  
 **Current Setting: (Max)**  
 **Info: As the mind is the basis of a person, this skill is the first and final line of defense protecting the User from mind control, mind wiping, action implantation, psychotic episodes, depression, delirium, and more. The level of enforcement can be modified, although if mental integrity is at risk it will automatically increase to a higher state.**

He tapped 'Max', and a list popped up. The bottom-most item, 'None', was grayed out... but the info block honestly made that option unlikely to be something Harry desired to begin with.

From there up there was 'Low', which stated that it would handle mind reading, memory modification, and other mental attacks without handling the user's emotion. Next level was 'Medium', which would do the lower levels but also dampen harsh emotions. He could get angry, but not go into a blind rage. He could get sad, but no suicidal. Happy, but not delirious.

The last two levels were 'High, all the below but during combat emotions would be heavily restricted to enhance focus and speed of reactions, and 'Max' which was all control all the time.

He quickly dropped it down from 'Max' to 'Medium'. Emotional control was something Harry didn't want to rely on some ability handling for him, and yet it looked like he could still feel the range of things without going over the edge, so to speak. And the fact he wasn't freaking out about how calm he was somehow made him want to freak out. Which he couldn't.

A pop-up asked for confirmation after closing all the boxes except the tutorial, with a summary of the changes (Few as they were).

A moment later he felt a spike in his head... and almost collapsed as emotions rammed through his body. Elation that he was still alive, ecstatic that not only did he survive the impossible again but that for once he seemed to have had some GOOD luck. The sadness of being alone came back, but was much less heavy to bare than before... apparently his darker emotions had been hurting more than he had realized.

Finally he was able to focus on the tutorial again. What a bloody rush that was!

 **Getting Started: Controls**

 **Your life is now a series of interfaces between your actions and the world around you.**

 **Learning about these interfaces will help you change actions that annoy you, discover new things to try, and possibly** **cause new elements of 'Gamer' to be created from nothing!**

 **To choose these interfaces, either Think or Say their name with intent.**

 **The following are the standard interfaces available at all times:**  
 **~Inventory: Your own personal storage space. Change how it is accessed, create sorting tabs, etc. Items will be frozen in time until removed unless specifically altered.**  
 **~Log: A written history, search-able, of past actions and achievements.**  
 **~Skills/Abilities/Techniques: Lists abilities, and allows skill points to be assigned.**  
 **~Status: Give current character details, assign leveling points, see/try to heal statuses, assign titles.**  
 **~Settings: Change features of 'Gamer' to better suit the User. Can modify how controls work, display colors, sound effects, etc.**

 **Default settings are set using calculated/estimated User Preferred options.**

 **The following are examples of non-standard interfaces that can be unlocked:**  
 **~Party: Build/Control/Disband a group to participate with a restricted version of the Gamer.**  
 **~Extensions: Devices, spells, creatures or more that can provide additional features to 'Gamer' can be handled in this tab. Examples would include phones, watches, detection creatures or devices, etc.**  
 **~Familiar/Pets: Assign active Familiar/Pet, gain ability to summon, share senses, dismiss. Active Familiar/Pet will gain benefits from User gaining experience, and gains a restricted version of the Gamer.**  
 **Unlocking these and more of such interfaces will occur naturally as User experiences the world.**

 **Note:**  
 **Others than the User are unable to see/interact with menus or items unless specific settings are changed.**  
 **As most interfaces and menus are highly advanced illusions, they will not interact nor damage the physical world.**

Harry read through the list. While his memory wasn't terrible, each item he read seemed to seep into his mind, forcing him to remember it.

Handy, but very odd feeling. "Status."

 **Harry James Potter, Title: (The-Boy-Who-Lived)**  
 **Level: 1, Exp: 0/1000XP, Stat Points: 10 (-Level Up-)**  
 **HP: 100/100 (1.66pm), MP: 0/100 (*pm)**  
 **Strength: 5, Dexterity: 5, Vitality: 5**  
 **Intelligence: 5, Wisdom: 5, Luck: 5**  
 **Temporary Effects (+|-): Rested, Restricted**  
 **Permanent Effects (+|-): Basilisk Born, Focused, Mischief Managed, Phoenix Protected, Shroud**

He blinked, as suddenly a second window popped up.

 **Would you like to view the Status tutorial? (Yes | No)**

Well... sure.

 **Name: You.**

 **Title: Can be altered. You will always be known as any title you've earned, but each has positives or negatives when actively assigned.**

 **Level: Normally capped at level 99 or 255, due to release of restrictions this is not capped. By default, User is restricted to 'limited' Level and settings to prevent accidentally hurting others. Automatically releases restrictions when desired by the User. See 'Settings' to adjust the default stats for the restricted level.**

 **Exp: How much experience currently earned, how much to next level.**

 **Stat Points: Earned various ways and on each level up, can be manually allocated to the power 6 stats: Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Luck. Allocate by selecting 'Level Up'.**

 **HP: If it reaches 0, User dies and resets to most useful Save Point. May be one day, or more. The recovery per minute (pm) is listed after the current HP.**

 **MP: If it reaches 0, no longer able to cast spells or use certain abilities. The recovery per minute (pm) is listed after the current MP.**

 **Strength: Determines how physically based attack damage is calculated, amount that can be carried (Outside of Inventory), ability to resist or safely block other physical attacks.**

 **Dexterity: Determines how aiming/range based attack damage is calculated, ability to dodge magical/physical attacks.**

 **Vitality: Determines HP available, ability to resist physical statuses (Poisons, Drugs, Strain, etc) as well as magical statuses that affect the body.**

 **Intelligence: Determines how easy it is to memorize or learn new abilities, increases chances that more options will instantly be noticeable during an event, can cause magic and abilities to be more efficient.**

 **Wisdom: Determines MP available, ability to understand most likely outcomes from each available option during an event, can cause magic or abilities to be more powerful.**

 **Luck: Does not increase the chance of something new happening, but does increase the best possible outcome of existing events. If a higher value drop could happen, it is much more likely. Reduces earned experience to accomplish these acts, spending that power to ensure the rarer outcomes occur. The more difficult or impossible the outcome, the less total reward will be available. Can be disabled to boost raw loot.**

 **Temporary Effects: These effects are currently assigned to the User, and may be either worn off in time or cured after a specific condition is met.**

 **Permanent Effects: These effects are continuous, and can only be disabled in specific ways dependent on the status.**

He blinked. Well... that was low then. Level one, huh. Closing the new pop-up, he looked at this original stats and began  
tapping.

 **Rested: Due to resting well, all learning abilities will receive a bonus. Fatigue will take longer to occur.**

 **Restricted: To avoid entering the Triwizard Tournament, User has sacrificed all magic. Recovery will not begin until user disables this status. (Disable?)**

His eyes widened. Tapping the 'Disable?' button, he DID get a confirmation, which he declined. Praise the B.O.B., apparently.

His face broke into a grin before looking below at the lower effects.

 **Basilisk Born: The Offering Ritual contained an excessive amount of Basilisk Venom, both provided, contained within the blood runes, and produced by the User's Body. Unnatural substances will be burned away over time without requiring rest/sleep. Blood magic will be very difficult to preform against the User due to blood contamination from the venom. Negative status effects not enforced by User's magic will wear off faster.**

 **Focused: By offering the User's Phoenix Feather Core Wand to the Gamer, Wandless abilities will be easier to learn, teach, and modify.**

 **Mischief Managed: By offering the Marauder's Map to the Gamer, you and your party have gained both the 'Mini-Map' and 'Map' features. View (Settings) to modify the default view of the map. Note: Must either visit areas in person or view existing documentation to expand map (Other maps or building plans for example).**

 **Phoenix Protected: The Offering Ritual contained an excessive amount of Phoenix Tears contained within the blood runes and produced by the User's Body. HP recovery has been unlocked and may be enhanced in the future. Fire is less harmful to the user and Healing Magic will be easier to learn, teach, and modify.**

 **Shroud: By attempting to offer the User's Invisibility Cloak to the Gamer, you have returned 'Deathly Hallows: Invisibility Cloak' to Death. In return, as you no longer are a part of the weave of Fate, Death has bestowed the blessing of his Shroud to you and those close to you. Instant Death effects are far less likely to work on you or those who are protected under your direct influence. Invisibility and Avoidance spells are easier to learn, teach, and modify.**

Harry... quickly felt his Gamer's Mind racket up to Max. That... was a near breakdown. He wasn't sure, what the 'Deathly Hallows' were, but to know that he had been interacting not just with the 'experience' of death, but the 'entity' of it as well? Thank Merlin for 'Gamer's Mind'.

After a bit of cooling down, he set Gamer's Mind back to Medium and focused on his options. It might be wise to hold off on assigning stat points until he read a few more of these tutorials, depending on how long it would take.

A new window opened.

 **When User is undergoing Tutorials, Leveling Up, or choosing a Save, the Gamer Guide will heavily increase time passage in the local area. Time has functionally frozen for the rest of the world until a basic understanding of the Gamer can occur.**

The boy looked around for the first time, noticing an elf near Dobby and Winky that was half phased in. Ah. Well, useful as that was, he couldn't cover all these tutorials for a long, LONG time. Better to look up items that were needed as they occurred.

Looking back at the bottom two list of effects, he tapped the plus symbol. Nothing happened. Frowning, he tapped the  
minus symbol. The list of effects changed to (...) and a pop-p occurred.

 **Only new, unexamined effects will be shown until (+) has been selected.**  
 **Pop-ups like the previous will be displaying until modified under (Settings).**

Harry blinked. He HAD started to get a bit annoyed at the pop-ups... kind of handy how it mentioned it now. Tapping  
'Settings' a new window popped open.

It was a large list of buttons. The top had 'General Settings', 'Combat Settings', 'World Only Settings', while the bottom  
had 'Relationship Settings', 'Cross-Dimensional Resources', and 'Home Settings'. He tapped 'General Settings' and  
another window popped up.

 **General Settings: The Gamer and Me**  
 **Visuals: (Standard), Alerts: (Medium)**  
 **Sound: (Standard), Alerts: (Low)**  
 **Map: (Hidden), Mini-map: (Hidden), Icons: (Disable All)**  
 **Command Methods: (Intent: Audible, Silent), Activity Log: (Max, Search-able)**  
Dungeon Handling: (Query User)

Harry tapped on Visuals and found... a long, LONG list. It covered everything imaginable, from special vision modes (Most locked, but he saw options like 'Thermal', 'X-ray', 'Low-Light', and more) to how the Gamer itself handled its visuals. He could change font type, color, edging, even more fiddly bits.

Other than read them all, he didn't change much. He did enable 'Known names over entities', but left off having the game try to estimate their HP, MP, etc.

He had to keep that in mind, as the Gamer had warnings about how combat worked. It wasn't all knowing (yet), so his attack, their defense, all that were just very detailed estimations and calculations about what was most PROBABLY true.

After all, HIS body had been changed to be heavily controllable, but no one else's had.

Seeing the warning that others could die even with an HP above zero was a bit frightening.

It seemed though that for the most part, the earlier 'Defaults will attempt to be what the User Desires" had worked out pretty well.

Clicking the 'Medium' next to visual alerts, he saw a list of options:

 **Off: No Visual Alerts ever. Remember to check the (Log) regularly to avoid missing important events.**

 **Low: Most vital events or notices will display only.  
**  
 **Medium: In addition to most vital events or notices, will alert with helpful information about items once upon first access.  
**  
 **High: Any helpful information will be displayed each time until individual types of alerts are marked 'Hide alerts like these'.  
**  
 **Max: All actions, events, or elements that could possible impact the User will be displayed. Note: Do not use this, was default 'Troll' setting for harassing previous Users.**

Harry actually laughed at the Max option, he actually remembered Dudley getting annoyed by some video game where a fairy constantly tried to help. Medium was fine enough, especially since the alerts would drop off as he was exposed to most. Leaving audio alerts to low seemed reasonable as well.

Checking the Sound option showed a long list as well. Surprisingly it had some tactically useful stuff as well. The setting 'Increase volume of sounds that are estimated to be malicious' and 'Attempt to match background music to estimated danger levels' could really have helped in the past. From the notes involved, they were like a less annoying version of a danger alert. It required him to turn on both 'Ambient Noises' and 'Background Music' though, which made it much easier to hear the water dripping in the background of the chamber as well as some sort of elegant violin quietly playing in the dark.

It was nice.

He noted that a small tune would play when he leveled up, a tiny chime would go off when he leveled up an ability or gained a stat bonus, but that random windows opening would NOT constantly cause little beeps and whistles or who knew what.

Now both Visuals and Sound were marked 'Custom' rather than default, which was fine. He messed with the map and mini-map options.., then had to go back to Visual and modify them. Now the mini-map was in the upper right, was slightly transparent, with very basic colors rather than photo-realistic. The Larger Map had lower detail (Way too hard to read otherwise), and was set back to hidden for now.

The Icon option was... distracting. He had bounced between almost nothing on to so many activated that the map was basically hidden. In the end, he left on 'Estimated Objective', 'Friends', 'Entities with Malicious Intent', 'Detected Secrets', and 'Marked Locations', which would be very useful in the future. Later he could work out whether or not to add the detected shops, restaurants, etc, etc, etc.

It was after moving on when he noticed a dot unexpected on his mini-map. Even as he focused on it, he saw 'Hermione' float above it as she seemed to be doing something in the kitchens.

A window popped up.

 **Your First Quest: A friend in need?**

 **Quests are either determined by objectives you decide to accomplish, questions you wish answered, or short term or long term goals that were given enough importance to have costs or rewards.**

 **In this case, Hermione Jane Granger has both showed up on the mini-map marked as 'friend' and is currently in a location completely unexpected based on her history and habits.**

 **Reconnect with your friend, if she is one, and determine the situation.**  
 **Estimated Reward: Companionship, 500XP [For First Quest]**  
 **Estimated Penalty: Possible permanent loss of friend, 500XP [At least you tried]**  
 **(Accept | Decline) [Future quests might not allow rejection]**

He blinked at the concept of his life being so... defined. Clearly it wasn't every decision or goal, or he would have had fifty of these things at this point. Still, it was what he had intended to do anyway.

Clicking 'Accept' he blinked. On the upper right of his vision, below the mini-map, was the word "Quest" with "A friend in Need" below it. Also her icon on the map now had a plus sign over it and a suggested path displayed.

Well, at least this feature would be handy to find people.

~~~Unlimited Gamer~~~

Hermione was not really making progress right now.

After some frustrating searching through the library, she determined that someone had whitewashed everything. All the available books said House Elves were gifts of magic, that they enjoyed doing any and all labor, and most listed the most efficient methods of punishing said gifts of magic to ensure they are being the most gifting gift that any gift could ever gift.

Burning them. Breaking bones. One even mentioned threatening to take them from their mates as a wonderful, pain-free punishment method. It was from an author who claimed to be a Light Wizard! And other books agreed, suggesting various psychological tortures and crimes that were called wonderful as they didn't involve mutilating the creatures.

And if that was all they were willing to say about the subject, the hidden or removed books must have been vile to read.

No wonder that elf had been so happy to be freed by Harry.

Idly she considered gathering a group to help the poor creatures... but she had a mission first.

Finding the elves was easier than expected thanks to the help of the Weasley Twins, Fred and George. Even though they were alternating words to the point where her head started to spin, when she explained WHY she was looking for the creatures they jumped to help.

Apparently they had been teasing Harry when he had first returned, and he had stayed for such a short period due to Ron that neither had a chance to explain themselves to the boy. So the idea of helping her find Harry had them giving rapid instructions on how to find the kitchens.

Having FOUND the elves, her luck basically ran out.

Turning to a different one she began again. "Look, I'm not going to hurt him or anything. I just want to go make sure he is alright. I need to talk to him."

The elf sniffed. "Baggsy knows what young mistress means well, but Baggsy was asked by the Honored Ones to only assist when the Great Harry Potter Sir requests so."

Again, an almost word for word repetition. No, asking about who the Honored One's didn't help. 'The Honored Ones are the ones who were Honored' didn't explain anything, and trying to inform an elf about that got vague nodding before they walked off to bake a pie or something.

She reached into her bag. "If he IS alright, how about delivering a note to him? It doesn't have to be long... Oh drat, where is my quill."

Harry handed one over. "Here Hermione."

She nodded, taking it and rapidly scribbling on the parchment she had pulled out. "Thanks." Looking up at the elf (Who for some reason looked confused) she continued. "See? It doesn't say anything mean or hurtful, I'm just worried about him. Thinking that he was deliberately ignoring my notes was bad enough, but that screaming... Just, pass this to him? And maybe check to see if he is ok?"

Baggsy glanced at the grinning wizard behind the girl. "You'se wishing Baggsy to deliver this to..."

She nodded. "Harry James Potter."

He chuckled. "Yes?"

She froze, half bent over to see eye to eye with the elf, hand outstretched.

Then she basically teleported into the boy, knocking them both to the ground. "HARRY!"

He laughed, coughing from the impact. "HERMIONE! Ouch though."

She looked at him in a mixture of joy, shock, and some level of anger. "You absolute PRAT! I couldn't find you for weeks! I was SO worried about you! And... And..." she blinked. "Did you change your hair?"

At this point her brain began catching up and she realized she was straddling a young man who looked MOSTLY like Harry Potter, although now he was taller (Longer since he was on the ground), looked much more muscular than she remembered, and his eyes were just gorgeous.

Her face hit eight levels of red and she jumped off, stuttering. "Uh... sorry, sorry!"

Harry laughed, stress falling from his shoulders as he stood, absently noticing a 'Quest Complete' in the background. "Don't worry about it Hermione, you didn't hurt me or anything. As for the Hair... and the rest... well, technically it was to help me out of the whole Tournament situation."

Her focus rammed back to the present as she gaped at him. "You mean you found the loop-hole too!? I had to go through the rules over eight times to find that!"

He blinked. "Really? I guess I shouldn't be surprised you had the same thought as me. How did you get a copy of the rules anyway?"

She waved a hand. "Cedric's a Hufflepuff, and you not knowing the rules wouldn't be fair play. But really, I'm impressed! How far along are you?" Learning the summoning charm or something similar was still possible in the few days left, now that she could actually talk with him about it. She had been learning it herself just to make it easier to teach him.

Harry shrugged. "Well, the first thing I tried was a healing ritual, which backfired a little on me. Sure it healed all kinds of  
problems I had, but in the process it made my magic even stronger. Enhanced just about everything."

She was incredulous. "How was THAT a backfire!? Oh... wait, was that what made you scream earlier? I guess rebuilding your body would be pretty painful." She shook her head. "I can't believe you managed to pull that off though. Most rituals can go wrong with only the smallest of issues."

He nodded. "No, the second ritual caused the screaming. The first one actually went fairly well, although that might be because I apparently had leftover Basilisk venom from being bit second year, and I chose that same venom as a big part of the ritual healing process. Destroying the broken, healing the wounded kind of thing. Still, all's well that ends well I suppose."

Hermione quickly considered the ramifications of having a ritual component be part of one's blood.., that could have done anything. Wait. "Second ritual? If the first one healed you, why do another one?"

Harry blinked. "Because the first one didn't do what I wanted... wait, what exactly was the loop-hole you found?"

She pulled out some notes and handed them to the boy. "I found some easy to learn spells that technically could win the task if it weren't for all the magic resistant wards and charms everywhere, and verified that you were not required to WIN the tasks to count as 'competing' in the task. Basically you enter with whatever dragon you get, either summon or attempt to levitate the egg... and after it fails, just keep doing the same thing. You'll lose, but hopefully won't be in much danger."

He nodded and looked through the notes. "This... this is a MUCH better plan than I came up with. Mostly. You did forget that since I was entered against my will, whoever did so was likely hoping I would get hurt. They likely plan on sabotaging the events."

He looked up and saw her face crumple in horror and quickly continued. "Not that it matters, since my plan eventually worked. There are some downsides to it, and I had to sacrifice some of my favorite things I owned, but the upside absolutely outweighs the bad."

She looked hopeful. "What do you mean?"

Harry gave her a grin. "How about we mosey on back to the Chamber of Secrets and I can give you the high level summary." A portion of wall near the door seemed to slither apart, exposing a stone corridor with lightly green torches. "I don't want anyone to bump into us while we talk."

Neither child saw the kitchen portrait slam open as they cheerfully walked in a hidden tunnel to the chamber, missing Albus Dumbledore by moments.

~~~Unlimited Gamer~~~

Harry chuckled at the numerous expressions Hermione was making. He also enjoyed how massive a change had gone over her since he ended up behind the poor girl earlier. Her eyes had gained that sparkle he remembered, she no longer looked tired and stressed... and she was examining everything as she walked. Almost non-stop, she continued to absently mention facts and myths about the chamber, Salazar Slytherin, what she had recently learned about elves, how his old friends were handling his disappearance.

Knowing Fred and George hadn't been serious with their "Hail the conquering Hero" spiel had been very reassuring.

He also answered many questions as they traveled, some of which he had put off until reaching the chamber. Yes, he was eating often and well; no he had not been slacking or just moping around (Much); yes he had been practicing and researching.

It was something new between them, as he had always played down his intelligence to avoid causing conflict with her... and more often, with Ron. That boy seemed offended at the idea of learning.

She fell silent when she saw the giant chamber, and gripped him in a massive hug after seeing the huge snake (Which the Gamer cheekily gave him the ability 'Damage Resistance' at level 1).

It had helped that one of the elves had placed actual window curtains over the creatures' eye sockets.

Finally he led her to the large bed... which caused her to blush again before he laughed. "No, nothing like that. I have two other friends to introduce you to. They are still recovering from the first part of my plan."

Turning to the two interested Housing elves, Harry grinned. "Dobby and Winky Potter, I would like to introduce Hermione Granger, my oldest friend. Hermione, these two house elves have been accepted into my family."

She stuttered for a bit, while the two elves also seemed to be a bit choked up. While it had technically been true that they were part of the Potter Family thanks to his magical sacrifice, being bestowed the Family name was neither required nor common.

Hermione recovered first. "H-Hello Dobby, Winky."

Dobby nodded. "Hello, Master Harry James Potter Sir's Mistress Grangy. I be's Dobby, a Housing Elf. This be's Winky, my's mate."

She gave a small nod to the overwhelmed elf. "Is there a difference between Housing elves and House elves? The library has very few books about it."

Winky gave a weak nod. "Personal elves share magic with master or family, magic we need to live, to have children. Housing elves receive a permanent donation of magic, and no longer require bonding with their Owners. We's still be's doing so out of respect and gratitude to Great Master Harry James Potter Sir."

He groaned. "Come on guys, can't you shorten it a little bit?"

Dobby nodded. "Of course Greatest Mr. Master Harry James Potter Sir."

Hermione giggled at the two elves innocent expressions. "Has he done this before?"

Harry sighed. "Yes... and if I keep asking my name might get so long he will be unable to say it."

Dobby shook his head. "Never Greatest Mr. Master Harry James Potter Sir! Such a thing would never happen."

He blinked. "Did you just lose your strange speech pattern?"

Dobby turned to Hermione. "We'se be'se having'se much many elves be'se wit' sus. Tey's help'in eff nees bees."

Harry frowned. "Snarky elf."

Hermione grinned as she helped Dobby change the conversation. "So Harry, what was the loophole you found?"

He sat on a chair and waved her to one as well. "Well first I spent time re-learning all the earlier magic from our previous years. I had hopped I could come up with something later on since I didn't know what we would be facing."

She nodded. "So after Charlie's letter you began looking into the contracts?"

He blinked. "Who? Wait, that dragon guy we sent that baby dragon to? Norbert?"

Hermione nodded looking puzzled. "He sent letters to all the champions, it got him in big trouble with Dumbledore. When they couldn't reach you, they left your letter in your room. I assumed you got it when it vanished... it was why I kept trying to leave notes there for you."

Harry felt something between elation and confusion. "I never visited my room, I was too busy and didn't want to put up with the jealousy up there."

She looked confused before groaning and dropping her head in her hands. "I caught Ron throwing out my letters on your bed a while ago, he must have tossed that one out as well. I didn't realize he had been doing something like that the whole time... I thought it was a recent thing."

Hermione looked at the large pile of books nearby, noticing quite a few about Dragons. "So... how did you find out?"

He pointed at the bed. "Dobby. This was what made me change my plans."

She waited as he continued. "Basically I researched everything, and I came to the conclusion that I just didn't have time to properly handle a nesting mother dragon, nor find a work around. And while imagining the many gruesome ways I could die if I didn't come up with SOMETHING, I began to wonder how I would die if I just left here, found a beach, and got to actually see the ocean."

He missed her shock as he looked at the ground. "Never got to see much of anything really, but I heard stories about the beach my whole life. Even Sirius went to a tropical island. Since I thought I was alone, I wondered what it would be like to die peacefully on some shore rather than being eaten alive or burned to death."

He jumped slightly, feeling Hermione slide next to him and wrap him in a hug. Relaxing slightly, he worked an arm around her and continued. "I wasn't going to kill myself or anything, but it did make me curious about how exactly the Goblet would enforce the 'contract' I was shoved into. Turns out, the Goblet doesn't kill you at all."

She blinked. "It doesn't? Wait... WHAT?" She began to feel rage build up. "You mean all this time that the teachers were ignoring you, ignoring those jerks who insulted you in the halls, and they could have just asked you to not participate?"

Harry shook his head. "Not really, there IS a penalty, one that most of the time is lethal. The Goblet drains any cheaters or failures of the contract of all their magic. The shock of losing it all at once with no safety limits kills almost anyone it happens to."

Hermione frowned. "Well... well." Slouching back into his arm and the chair, she grumbled. "That sucks."

He grinned. "Language Hermione. So of course, if my options were death or losing my magic, I decided that I would rather live. Dobby helped find all kinds of books about how to willingly give up one's magic. Or... mostly willingly."

He shook his head. "Apparently Dumbledore owns some really, REALLY dark books in his private library. Dobby got them for me. That healing ritual was supposed to sacrifice the magic of other creatures or people to power it, I had myself be both the sacrifice and the caster. I gathered a whole bunch of rituals like that, and I had planned on giving up the rest of my magic in the process so I could survive running from the Goblet."

Hermione stared slack jawed into the darkness. On one hand, the concept of losing her magic... horrible. On the other, the idea of losing Harry... unacceptable. "That... is terrifyingly brilliant. How did the healing ritual go wrong?"

He groaned. "It worked great, took a whole bunch of my magic too, since you can see how much I changed."

Her arms subtly felt his hard muscles flex slightly... Mmm, changed indeed.

Harry continued. "The problem was I was SO unhealthy and hurt before the ritual, that once all my issues were fixed I had actually recovered MORE magic than I had used up. Even after giving a whole lot of magic to Dobby and Winky, I was about 42% stronger than when I started the whole mess.

He nodded at her shocked expression. "Yeah, not expected, especially since I found out I had massive magical reserves compared  
to people in the past, or likely those today. The healing ritual was supposed to only take 2% of my power, but for a normal witch or wizard that would have been around 80% of theirs back then."

Looking at the cleaned area in the corner. "So after that mistake, I had too much power to do enough rituals quickly enough to actually get rid of it. BEFORE that first healing, I would have just managed to get rid of around 103% of my power or so using only three or four more rituals. I had a bunch to pick from depending on exactly how much the healing used up."

Flexing his arm to the side he sighed. "But after healing, it was just too much power to get rid of before the first event of the tournament, especially since I took way longer than expected recovering from it. I eventually had to do something called the 'Offering Ritual', from one of Dumbledore's darker books."

Hermione accepted the book with trepidation and began leafing through it as Harry continued. "It apparently was a tradition many years ago to do this ritual as part of graduating from Hogwarts, before it was modified by a Dark Lord to increase the risks involved as well as ramp up the awards. The Ministry ended up banning both versions."

She rapidly read through it. "Only usable once per wizard or witch, causes pain..." Looking up at him, she saw him sigh and nod.

Turning back to the pages. "Must sacrifice three material possessions, the deeper the connection to the caster the greater the possibility of a gift. What gift?"

Harry waved a hand. "Check near the back of the book, this author documented a ton of them in an attempt to predict the outcome. Long story short, the more important the sacrifices and the more power gifted, the larger the success or failure. Obviously if you gave too little or were just unlucky, you could get nothing at all."

Her eyes flashed from case after case. Some donated almost all their magic and got nothing, a few quit their sacrifice almost instantly and got huge rewards. "It must have been a huge deal back then. This lists everyone from Lords and Ladies down to peasants and migrants."

He nodded. "So I gave up some stuff, sacrificed 142% of my original magic, and got lucky."

Hermione narrowed her gaze. "What stuff?"

Harry sighed, running a hand through his inky black hair. "The Marauder's Map, my wand..." He paused as she gasped in horror. "And my Invisibility Cloak." He ignored her expression and just hugged her tighter with one arm. He should probably mention that she had been hugging him for a while now, but it was too comfy. "I know, I know, but from my point of view I was giving up magic regardless. The map was for a school I wouldn't be able to attend, my wand wouldn't be able to cast anything. My true regret was my cloak, but nothing else really came close to as important to me compared to it. Not object wise, anyway."

She looked at him with sympathy. "What about your broom?"

He sighed. "I thought about it, but I like flying more than the broom itself. If it wasn't for Sirius buying this one it would mean nothing to me at all. Flying on the best broom is amazing, but I could make do with almost anything. The Cloak though was a Potter Heirloom." Harry frowned. "Oh, and it was also something called a 'Deathly Hallow' and belonged to Death. Like, an actual grim reaper Death. Didn't know that at the time."

Hermione stared at him. "Really?"

He shrugged. "I looked it up after the ritual, yeah. Apparently there were three objects, the Cloak, a stone, and a wand. Getting all three was supposed to make you the 'Master of Death' whatever that means. Probably best that it has been returned really, can't imagine how stupid you would have to be to anger the Grim Reaper and try to tell it what to do."

She gave a weak nod. "So... what did you get then? You said it was good?"

She watched him raise his free arm and begin to randomly push various places in mid-air. Focusing, she realized that whatever he was doing was actually giving his fingers resistance, and was always a set distance from his face as he worked... there was something there she couldn't see.

And then she could.

A large blue window, with white trim, just in front of her, pulling a squeak from her.

 **Harry Potter, the Gamer, invites you to join his Party.**  
 **(Accept | Decline)**

After a sharp glance at the FAR to amused boy, her mind started accelerating at the implications of this.

As she started to click Accept, she realized she had been hugging, almost stroking the incredibly fit version of her best friend for the last thirty minutes.

Thankfully most of her blush was hidden to the dim lighting of the chamber. Probably.

Oh Merlin, how embarrassing. Thankfully a pop-up distracted her.

 **Welcome Hermione Granger! You have gained a temporary, reduced version of 'Gamer', Version 0.0013.**

 **Joining Harry Potter's Party has granted the following access to the following menus:**  
 **~Inventory [Limited]: Your own limited personal storage space. Stored within a subsection of Harry Potter's Inventory, you can change how it is accessed, create sorting tabs, etc. Items will be frozen in time until removed unless specifically altered.**  
 **~Log: A written history, search-able, of past actions and achievements.**  
 **~Party [Limited]: Can view party members, set up conference calls or group messages, set up trades, etc.**  
 **~Skills/Abilities/Techniques: Lists abilities, and allows skill points to be assigned.**  
 **~Status: Give current character details, assign leveling points, see/try to heal statuses, assign titles.**  
 **~Settings [Limited]: Change features of 'Gamer' to better suit the User. Can modify how controls work, display colors, sound effects, etc. Default settings are set using estimated User preferred options.**

 **After rest/sleep, the following changes will occur to your existence:**  
 **~Any and all injuries will be converted into damage values and status effects.**  
 **~All damage and status effects will be healed after rest/sleep.**

 **All abilities and accesses will be paused after leaving the Party, but will be restored should you rejoin. If damaged, User will be unable to leave Party until damage is reduced to Non-lethal levels (Changeable by Gamer Harry Potter's Party menu)**

Harry chuckled as he watched her begin to dig into her menus, almost instantly getting lost in tutorials, lesser description boxes, and more. Looking back at his new 'Party' menu, he tapped her name.

 **Hermione Jane Granger, Title: (Smartest of Her Generation)**  
 **Level: 1, Exp: 0/1000XP, Stat Points: 10 (-Level Up-)**  
 **HP: 100/100, MP: 100/100 (1.66pm)**  
 **Strength: 5, Dexterity: 5, Vitality: 5**  
 **Intelligence: 5, Wisdom: 5, Luck: 5**  
 **Temporary Effects (+|-): Stressed**  
 **Permanent Effects (+|-): Bubbling Brew, Overloaded Relaxation, Stone Cold, Temporal Thoughts**

Hmm. Looks like entering into his ability didn't import their basic stats... there was no way he was identically as wise or as intelligent as the girl, or that either of them were so balanced. He started tapping on the Temporary Effect.

 **Stressed [Modified by 'Overloaded Relaxation']: Due to long hours of work, lack of sleep, and a large number of goals, all learning abilities will receive a penalty. Fatigue will occur at an increased rate.**

He blinked. Well, it was obvious enough, except for the modified item. He rapidly tapped through those.

 **Bubbling Brew: Despite little professional oversight, you have consistently brewed exceedingly complicated potions correctly far beyond expectations. Ingredient Harvesting and Potion Brewing processes are easier to learn, teach, and modify.**

 **Overloaded Relaxation: Years of extreme studying and research has caused your magic to accept that state as not only normal, but relaxing. The act of research or reading will lower negative effects of statuses such as Stressed, Tired, Overworked, etc. All mental related negative status effects will expire sooner when reading or researching.**

 **Stone Cold: An ancient Basilisk petrified your body for multiple months. Your magic has built up a tolerance to any effect that restricts movement: Paralysis, Petrification, Slow, Body Bind, etc. Such actions are more likely to fail, have reduced durations, or even rebound on the caster.**

 **Temporal Thoughts: For multiple months you were exposed to massive amounts of temporal energy from using a Time Turner. Thinking and understanding the innermost complexities of reality travel, temporal looping, etc will be far easier to handle safely. Magic related to Time Magic will be easier to learn, teach, and modify.**

He blinked before tapping Hermione's shoulder, moving her window closer. "Hey Hermione, did you see your status page already?"

She blinked, moving her seven or so windows aside (And they were already light pink windows with black borders too).

Glancing over the new page she mumbled. "Alright, looks like my abilities have been set at some basic level. What the heck is this title?"

He watched her tap it.

 **Available Titles:**  
 **Newborn Witch: You are a Witch, able to bend reality to your will! Reduces the cost of spells by 25%, bestows Magic** **Point Regeneration. As you have no magical parents, no bonus or penalties have been granted. This title is always** **active.**

 **Smartest of Her Generation [Active]: Acknowledged by your peers for multiple years, you've stood above all. Reduces** **difficulty in learning new spells, increases ability to teach new spells to others. Mistakes or false statements will be** **easier to notice in reviewed work.**

Harry looked thoughtful as the girl read the text, stunned. "That sounds about right, really. I've always thought you were  
the smartest girl I knew, and you've always been able to help Ron and I with our homework."

She absently went back to her stats. "Helping you, maybe. Ron just ended up coping a bunch of our work and calling it done. It's why he still gets worse grades even though we do the research together." She opened the 'Level Up' window. "So should I save my level up points? Or use them right away?"

Harry shrugged. "I'm going to spend them later, once I get rid of my 'Restricted' status so I can use magic again."

She blinked and looked back at Harry. "I thought you gave it all up!?"

He just brought up his Temporary Effects window. "I tried, but it went odd. Long story short, after it changed me it added a temporary status effect that locks my magic and magic regeneration at zero. Didn't expect that of course, and it looks easy to turn off.. but yeah, I'm a magical non-magical now. None of this that we are looking at is technically magical in nature."

Hermione blinked, and looked at the status window. "Can I make it show your status instead of mine?"

Harry nodded and brought up his own menu... and paused.

 **Harry James Potter, Title: (The-Boy-Who-Lived)**  
 **Level: 2, Exp: 500/1500XP, Stat Points: 20 (-Level Up-)**  
 **HP: 100/100 (1.66pm), MP: 0/100 (*pm)**  
 **Strength: 5, Dexterity: 5, Vitality: 5**  
 **Intelligence: 5, Wisdom: 5, Luck: 5**  
 **Temporary Effects (+|-): (...)**  
 **Permanent Effects (+|-): (...)**

Blinking, he opened up the Log. "How did I level up? Going to see if you were alright was only worth 500xp."

Hermione blinked. "Really? So you just came to see me because the quest told you so?"

He shook his head, scrolling through the Log. "Other way around. The Quest system works by judging if an objective I have is likely to have rewards or penalties and lets me know after I make a decision. So basically I wanted to see if you were alright, THEN I got a quest for it. Wait, here we are."

 **Log:**  
 **Quest Complete: 'A Friend in Need?'**  
 **~Found Hermione Granger! Companionship granted, 500xp gained.**  
 **~(Unknown) Fred Weasley is still your Friend! 500xp gained.**  
 **~(Unknown) George Weasley is still your Friend! 500xp gained.**  
 **New Skill gained: "Damage Resistance", Level 1. No external levels to import.**  
 **New Quest: "Party Hardy" available.**

Hermione pushed the relief that Harry had been worried about her aside and focused. "So it looks like you were trying to find out if we were still friends... and since I let you know about the twins, you technically found three of us, tripling the reward?"

He gave a nod. "The 'Damage Resistance' I thought was a joke, I got it after your big hug when we entered the Chamber. Didn't see the new Quest though." Glancing to the side, he saw a new window almost waiting out of the way. "Huh... I take that back. I noticed a 'ping' earlier, but didn't know to look to the edge to see the new quest."

He reached and pulled up the new window.

 **Quest: Party Hardy**  
 **You have emotionally accepted Hermione Granger as a close friend or more, and wish to inform her of the 'Gamer'.**  
 **In addition to wishing her to understand your recent changes, you want her to benefit from them as well.**

 **Create your first Party, and invite her into the jurisdiction of the 'Gamer'**  
 **Estimated Reward: Increased camaraderie, 250xp [BFF!]**  
 **Estimated Penalty: Distancing from friend, 5Oxp [Sometimes life doesn't work out.]**  
 **(Accept |** Decline **) [You've already accomplished this quest]**

Blinking he tapped accept... and saw another box flash in the upper right, near his mini-map but below his quest list before vanishing.

 **Rewards Accepted: Level Up to [2]! 750/1500xp till [3].**

Hermione gasped. "I just got 250xp too! I think since we are in a party it splits it up before telling us the XP reward."

Harry tapped through some screens in the Party menu. "Yeah, by default. I can make it assign XP randomly, or evenly distributed, or specify how much per person. Same with loot apparently, although that just gives items to each person in a loop, round-robin style. That's fine, I don't need to level up in a hurry right now anyway."

Glancing back at his statistics he absently tapped his own Title.

 **Available Titles:**  
 **Half-Blood Wizard: You are a Wizard, able to bend reality to your will! Reduces the cost of spells by 25%, bestows**  
 **Magic Point Regeneration. As Heir to the Potter Family Line, Magic relating to self-defense will be easier to learn,**  
 **teach, and modify. As a child to a Newborn Witch, Penalties from inbreeding and gene contamination have been**  
 **negated. This title is always active.**

 **The-Boy-Who-Lived [Active]: Formally fated to defeat the Dark Lord Tom Marvolo Riddle, your existence has been**  
 **defined by bizarre adventures, constant adversity, and unending infamy. Decreased chance of anomaly, increased**  
 **chance of being treated according to the wills of the masses. Those who side with you have increase resistance**  
 **against injury, boosted moral, and a higher chance to survive lethal spells and situations. Those who side against you**  
 **will have reduced mental focus, emotional control issues, and a tendency to overlook important details or easier**  
 **solution to their problems.**

 **Freak: Years of abuse convinced you that this was your name. Lowers chance of detection, increases stealth. Will**  
 **cause others to overlook you as important, or as a person. After years of use, this title now grants increased bonuses**  
 **in other areas where 'Freak' is expected to excel in: Theft, Pickpocket, Hijacking, Intimidation, Wilderness Survival,**  
 **and Sexual Prowess.**

He stared blindly at the last line of the horrifyingly labeled 'Freak' Title. "Huh... never thought! would willingly want to be called 'Freak' again." Realizing that a girl he liked was SITTING RIGHT THERE, he jerked toward her to try and mitigate the damage... when he realized she had covered her mouth with her hands and was trying not to cry.

Harry quickly moved from a one arm hug to two as she sobbed into him. "Abuse!? I'm so sorry Harry! I know you complained about your relatives, but you never acted like it was a big deal! Why didn't you tell me!? No, why didn't I notice! I'm a horrible friend!"

He rubbed her back and tried murmuring soothing nothings. "Shh shh shh, it's alright, everything is good. Just calm down, it's fine, it's okay, alright?"

It took a few minutes before he felt her fall into sniffles. "First of all, you were a kid too Hermione. And after I tried to convince Professor Dumbledore and failed, I just assumed there was no point in trying again." He squeezed her again. "And hey, did you see the bonuses at the end of it? I'm not sure I'll ever need to intimidate someone or survive in the wild, but it could be useful."

She looked up at the window. "Wha? Bonuses?"

He coughed. "Yeah, the last one is a bit embarrassing. Ever heard the term 'Freak in the Sheets'?"

Hermione gasped, then swatted his arm, breaking up into embarrassed giggling. "That's horrible Harry."

He chuckled. "Strangely, that wasn't a joke."

She blinked. "No." Looking back at the description she gasped. "REALLY? That's just... wow. Kind of in bad taste though. I wonder how that would work?"

He snorted. "Not till we're older girl. I only just hit 14." Internally he cringed slightly. That was FAR too flirty compared to  
what he was used too. Thankfully she laughed, taking it as intended. "And while I like you a lot, that is just way too much too soon."

What? CRAP, that was out loud. He felt his body tense as he slammed his eyes shut. "Sorry."

He jerked as he felt soft... oh, her hand was squeezing his shoulder. "Don't put your walls back up Harry. I agree that something on that level would be beyond acceptable between two friends. At least at our age. But don't feel like you can't joke with me like that, alright?"

He opened one eye before relaxing. "Yeah, sorry. I got a bit stir crazy being down here mostly alone with those two love-birds over there. My mind filter has basically turned off a bit when I get talking."

She chuckled. "I could tell. And I appreciate the compliment, as if I would be good enough for something like that."

He looked at her, stupefied. "Good enough? You've been the smartest girl I've known my whole life! Even if you weren't cute you would be more than good enough for me to date... Uh." Crap, Abort! Everything overboard, jump ship! "What I meant was... I mean... uh."

She slowly lost her stunned expression... and her face lit up in a huge smile. "Thank you Harry. I really appreciated the compliment. Now stop stuttering and help me through this massive non-magical floating series of menus and lists."

His blush was so vivid he could feel it spreading down his neck. Why hadn't his Gamer Mind kicked in? Stupid ability. "A-Any way, I was going to wait until I unlocked my magic before assigning any stat points. Apparently you can earn most of them unrelated to level anyway through hard work." He pointed at each item. "It was in one of the tutorials I did, since Leveling Up will get harder the higher you get, it's mostly used to just unlock access to new levels of power and grant bonus stat points."

He gently returned to hugging her. "Pushing things, lifting stuff, anything physical will earn Strength points. Running while changing direction a lot or doing stuff that requires coordination will build up Dexterity. Getting hurt, doing long term exercises, resisting some types of magic will build up Vitality."

Nodding at the list he moved down. "Learning lots of new spells or just information will raise Intelligence, while mastering spells or working on complicated situations will raise Wisdom. Luck though will boost on its own when something really lucky happens. I can gamble or something to boost it. It won't go down with bad luck, so even getting a losing streak won't mess up progress in that."

Hermione frowned. "But won't that mess with our bodies? What is an average human on this scale?"

Harry sighed. "I got a list for comparison. Non-magical adults are mostly base level 5, Magical people around 10, Creatures can  
be anywhere on the scale really. Obviously individuals who are stronger will have higher stats in some areas than others. Don't worry about us though."

He swiped a previous tutorial over and pointed. "Basically we have a locked level, our standard every day power level. So we don't break people in half trying to push them away, or accidentally eat our spoons while having soup, that kind of stuff. Only when we want and expect our power to be released will it happen. So you can shake hands with a person and still punch a bull unconscious at the same time without losing control of yourself."

Harry sighed. "Fair warning, the conversion to 'Gamer's Body' was terrible for me, but I think that is because I am the Main User of the ability. Next time you sleep, your body should convert much slower and without pain, according to the Party Tutorials. After that you can make changes, assign points, and all the rest."

She was already looking through her 'Settings' again, listening as she rapidly absorbed information. "This is brilliant Harry... Oh, this map is amazing!"

He leaned forward, and nodded. "Both that and the big map were results of me sacrificing the Marauder's Map. I'm glad you can use it too actually."

She fiddled with the option, watching the mini-map change shape, icons appear and vanish, and more. "And what? Did it become an ability or something?"

Harry pushed forward his Status page. "It actually became a Permanent Effect, listed in the Status page. I was more surprised to see you already had a few, since almost all of mine originated from the initial ritual."

Almost instantly she pushed five new windows out of the way and dived into her own 'Permanent Effects'. "Hmm... Bubbling Brew? Oh, I suppose that above-N.E.W.T. level Polyjuice Potion counts for that, since most in Hogwarts never even try it... oh. Well what Professor Snape does can't really be considered 'Professional Oversight'. I guess each of these are from major moments of my school career."

Harry nodded. "I'm really grateful for the 'Stone Cold' feature, although it was a nightmare back when it occurred. At least you will be innately resistant to a bunch of stuff now."

Her eyes widened as she ran through the list, bulging at the last one. "I could learn TIME Magic!? And it looks like your ability is basically confirming the existence of multiple realities."

He tapped that line. "Apparently a being existed between realities and had already gifted me this Gamer ability. My ritual just sped up the process by a whole lot, thankfully. So yeah, long term I am hoping to 'abandon ship' as it were, and find some place without Voldemort all together. Otherwise I'll be chased by him, the ministry, and probably Dumbledore as well."

She looked up, wary. "Would we be able to return?"

Harry tried not to smile at the thought of her coming along. "I'm not sure, haven't done ANY research on this yet... if only I knew someone who..." He glanced back at her list. "Found research not only normal, but relaxing."

She grinned and poked her elbow into his ribs. "Prat. I'm not sure about leaving my family forever right now, but after school..." Her grin faded. "Oh... we might not have time for that. Even if you get out of Goblet of Fire's contract this way, it would also be used as proof that you were non-magical. Malfoy or one of the other Death Eaters might use that to attack you politically, or financially."

He nodded, passing her some parchment notes for her to read through. "Yeah, before the whole 'I might be able to leave the universe' option popped up, I assumed they would all come after me like the school did in second year over the whole 'Heir of Slytherin' thing."

Popping open his Inventory, he showed her the new window. "I plan on heading to Gringotts tonight, by sneaking out of the hidden tunnel to the candy shop and going through the Floo to Diagon Alley. I'll get access to my stuff, store it all away into my inventory, and then no one other than me can get to it... and maybe you, we haven't tested that yet."

She looked at the window. The top left had a number in 'G, S, K', while the main body was a grid with items already listed, with numbers in the bottom right of each indicating multiples. Along the top of the box was a series of tabs, listed 'All', 'Food', 'Drink', 'Healing', 'Clothing', and 'Stuff'. "What are the tabs for?"

Harry blinked. "Ah, you can make your own pretty easily, but each one is a saved search or filter of your inventory. Makes it easy to find stuff when needed. The Gamer ability will actually modify the tab I'm on depending on what is inside." He tapped the Clothing one, which showed a series of outfits. "Like those, for example. I didn't choose those outfits, they were pre-selected. I can make more manually, or hit the 'Dirty' button to get what needs to be washed, and so forth. Makes getting dressed easy, so far at least. Only used it once."

Hermione quickly moved a hand. "Inventory." Her own black rimmed pink window popping up. So far she only had the 'All' tab, but moments later was making new ones. Basically you held down next to an old tab and stated what exactly it should filter for, then she could modify that filter pretty intuitively. "What if I wanted to share some space with... oh."

A new tab appeared in BOTH their inventories, labeled 'Shared'. Harry chuckled. "Yeah, the ability tries to modify itself as we use it. I guess we could use the shared box to move loot around between us when far away, or so neither of us have to carry cash when shopping or whatever." He motioned to the numbered section. "The amount we have can be extracted however you want, by the way. I can get it all out as Knuts for example, even though I put in Galleons and Sickles. It actually took a few tries to prevent it from converting everything into whatever currency I think of, but if you need pounds or some foreign currency, just ask for that amount aloud or thinking with intent."

She modified some more settings, then moved back to her Status page. "Health Points, Magic Points, easy enough. Why do you have HP recovery while I don't?"

Harry shrugged. "Side effect from Phoenix Protected. I think I might not have gotten it if it wasn't for the recovery ritual I did just before."

She bit her lip, looking worried. "So we would have to leave tonight?" Skipping a class was one thing, could she just... leave?

Thinking back on the last three years and the start of this one, she did what she always did and made a list. After how badly the  
beginning of first year had been going, she had researched home tutoring and private education instead of a large facility like Hogwarts.

It would only take a few forms to allow her to do personal study for her O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s. The process was made easy to encourage non-pure-bloods to stay away from other children and hopefully fail more often. While Harry would likely have issues signing up, a random girl like her would have no problem.

So what would she gain or lose?

Negative: Loss of Hogwart's Teachers. Of course, out of all her teachers she would only miss about four of them. Transfiguration, Charms, Astronomy, Runes... taught well and covered well. The others ether failed as teachers (Hagrid), were covering the material far too slowly for her (Herbology, Arithmancy), or actively tried to destroy her progress (Professor Snape). And they had only had a single good Defense against the Dark Arts professor, and he was kicked out.

So... maybe less of a negative than an 'Annoyance' really.

She would be leaving her friends.., which was narrowed down to basically Harry at this point anyway, maybe the twins. And her family, although they hadn't exactly been close recently. Her dad was very anti-witch, and halfway through first year her mom stopped sending letters. Without Harry and Ron, she would have fallen apart that year.

Hermione frowned. Actually as a point, she wasn't sure she would miss her parents now, and wasn't that just a horrible thing to think? Even after she hid most of her adventures, they hadn't noticed when she stopped sending letters during the time she was petrified. And even after covering up most of her adventures, she had still been threatened with not returning to school.

Only the fact all three would be mind-wiped if she quit before N.E.W.T.s (It was O.W.L.s actually, but they didn't need to know that) allowed her to return to school. Other than that argument, her father hadn't spoken directly to her since before she left for school, and last summer her mother had drastically reduced the amount of interaction they had. She had also noticed more anti-magic propaganda around the house last summer, which was about as subtle as her dad got now a days.

Heck, running away with a 'bad' boy to another dimension almost turned the parent thing to a positive, really.

Focus.

The Library. She hesitated. "Urn... if we are going to be running away, be chased by everyone, and basically be treated as criminals.., could I make a suggestion?"

Harry shrugged. "I already had house elves steal all of Snape's potions, ingredients, and shoes."

She blinked. "What? Why?"

He looked shifty. "Important ritual reasons. Undocumented. On a side note, he had a very strange pair of fluffy boots I hadn't expected." Giving her another hug, he grinned. "Why? Had something else we could do to stuff it to the old man? I am pretty sure it is directly his fault I am in this mess anyway."

Seeing her shock he shrugged. "It was in the rules, I was too young to compete without the approval of my guardian. Since no one knows about or cares about my Aunt or Uncle, I don't think it was them. Sirius is still on the run, and he wouldn't do that to me anyway. That leaves our Head of House, Professor McGonagall, or the Headmaster, Dumbledore. He basically could have refused permission, or ask my aunt and uncle, and we would have been done."

Her face scowled as she rapidly began working on the positive list, even as her mind began reassessing their years of schooling while considering Professor Dumbledore as a negative.

If he DIDN'T have Harry's best interests in mind, all those chance encounters finding out about the Philosopher's Stone suddenly made sense. So did the old man taking a broom of all things to the ministry, when there was a Floo in his office, he could teleport, and he had a pet phoenix (Which could teleport or fly while carrying huge amounts of weight). The fact that he showed up just AFTER everything happened, but didn't seem alarmed or rushed... yeah.

That Dumbledore basically did nothing at all second year other than get kicked out, while a dapper man specializing in memory charms was lying to all the students and a snake the width of a car was wandering around basically meant the man was incompetent or up to something. Either was unacceptable.

She looked over at Harry, who looked a bit alarmed at her expression. "If Dumbledore was actually against us, I'm not sure if that is better or worse than him being so incompetent. First year seems like a setup now, to lead us to confronting V-Voldemort."

Harry hummed. "Well, I'm not sure if it was him or Professor McGonagall who sent me and Ron into the forbidden forest at night, looking for some creature hunting and killing unicorns." Missing her gasp he frowned. "However, I know it IS Hagrid's fault that there is a huge nest of house size spiders living the forest. When you were petrified Ron and I went looking for them in the forest because of a comment Hagrid said. So big they can talk English. And hundreds of dog size spiders, and even more eggs."

Blinking he tilted his head. "In retrospect, I'm really glad we got the dragon away from Hagrid. He would have found some way to breed it, I'm sure." Shuddering he frowned. "Not that sure if an army of dragons IS worse than the massive number of spiders out there honestly."

Hermione slammed 'House Sized Spiders' into the negative column so hard it hurt. "What is WRONG with this school?!"

After a few harsh breaths, she continued. "Okay, so teachers have actively tried to kill at least you every year."

He waggled his hand. "Last year, Professor Lupin was just being a natural werewolf really."

She waved it off. "Even if you don't count him, Professor Snape was the one who didn't deliver his potion, then actively started to chase said werewolf AGAIN without the potion. And disarmed you while in a room WITH that werewolf and other people he wasn't exactly fond of."

Harry sighed. "Fair enough. And I guess we should add in Dumbledore not helping get Sirius a trial, since the old man basically controls huge chunks of the government."

Hermione clenched her eyes. "Time travel. He not only encouraged us to go back, but we were in major risk of self-destruction, time rupture, all kinds of issues. Why didn't he just take my Time-Turner and go himself? At the time I was too worried to think about it, but he could have easily captured Pettigrew, stopped those Dementors, and kept Remus away after he transformed."

Harry groaned. "Instead he sent two hospitalized third year school children, suggested we free Buckbeak from the Ministry Official come to kill him, and walked off. Man, I am the one who saved myself! I'm sure that is breaking some law of time."

She sighed, tapping through menus and reading as she thought. "It only worked because you didn't think you saw yourself while you were waiting for yourself to be saved by you until you used your patronus to keep yourself and yourself safe from the Dementors. If you had known it was you that was waiting to save you until you realized you wouldn't see anyone else then you might have acted in such a way that you would be unable to save yourself as you saw you and thus all of you would have vanished."

He blinked. "Right. So basically, we almost vanished ourselves?"

Hermione tapped her chin. "I think I need to remake my lists. Verbally this time, since I want your opinion on them.

Harry sighed. "Sure, go ahead."

Before they could continue, a pop-up appeared.

 **Quest: The Future of Gaming**

 **Hermione and the User are debating abandoning the Tournament now that the User is no longer bound by any**  
 **existing contract or fate. Her list of items will hopefully make the decision obvious.**

 **Against Leaving:**  
 **~Will have to leave her family behind.**  
 **~Will have to leave other friends behind [Fred, George, etc].**  
 **~Will lose access to what few qualified and competent Teaching Staff is available.**  
 **~Will lack money, existing resources [Hermione's Home].**  
 **~Will lack plan of where to go.**  
 **~Might face death or danger... The Unknown.**

 **For Leaving:**  
 **~Will be able to leave her family behind.**  
 **~Will be free to self-study any subjects as desired.**  
 **~No more Professor Snape, Slytherin Students.**  
 **~Will be away for influence/schemes of Voldemort [Tom Riddle] and the Leader of the Light [Albus W.P.B. Dumbledore] and the incompetent corrupt bureaucracy [Ministry of Magic]**  
 **~Can abandon Tn-Wizard Tournament early [Chance to protect finances from being confiscated for having 'no magic']**  
 **~Will avoid at least two likely types of death [Tournament, Assassination]**  
 **~The Unknown!**

 **Estimated Reward: A more likely future, 1000xp [Just the two of us!]**  
 **Estimated Failure: Both of us killed, 5Oxp [Or worse, Expelled!]**  
 **(Stay | Leave) [Suggestion: Research Reality Hopping. Soon.]**

The two kids blanched at the options available. Harry glanced at Hermione. "So I personally am voting for 'Leave' at this point, but I never had much to hold me here besides you and a sport. Maybe a desire to do my parents proud, which doesn't really include an early death."

She gave a rueful grin and waved at the 'Expelled' line. "At least it has a sense of humor. And I think after trying out the Imperious curse on a snake trying to get down here, I have pretty much already committed to seeing where this rabbit hole goes."

Harry nodded at massive corpse the chamber. "In this case, it goes to a snake." After getting a weak chuckle from her, he gave her a  
squeeze. "And... well, I can't thank you enough for even considering this. I can't imagine a larger leap of faith than 'Come with me to an unknown place as we run away from it all."

Glancing at the massive corpse of a snake and two quietly chatting elves in love, he chuckled. "And as sweet as that sounds, now that I think about it, I couldn't have chosen a less romantic location."

She laughed, like chimes in the dark. "I don't know, smuggled away to your secret chambers, dark mood lighting, and wrapped in your arms while you show off your massive snake?"

Laughing as he blushed and stuttered, she chose the 'Leave' option. Below the quest list a pop-up appeared for a moment.

 **Rewards Accepted: +1000xp**  
 **Rewards Accepted: Level Up to [3]! 250/2000xp till Level [4].**

Hermione blinked. "Hey! I just leveled up... you must have gotten 1000xp too, right?"

He nodded. "I just hit level 3, while you just got level 2, right? And about 20 Stat Points?"

She blinked. "That is SO much! I don't even know what to do with them!"

Harry shrugged. "You can't do anything until you take a nap so the game can finish setting you up. You can use my cot, I was too busy to ask for a full bed like Dobby has. I don't want to get started so close to noon anyway."

She just shook her head. "We have to start moving first before trouble starts, and I only came up with my idea a few minutes ago..."

He snapped his fingers, and a new elf appeared. "Yes Mr. Potter Sir?" The boy looked at Hermione with a question in his eyes.

She sighed. "Yes, I have a large list of items that need to be done before Harry, Dobby, Winky and I are ready to go. Could any of the House Elves help us?"

The room was full of tiny people with huge eyes even before she ended the sentence.


End file.
